EL SALVADOR

Press freedom was seriously affected by the killing of radio journalist Salvador Sánchez who was shot as he was leaving his house on September 22. Authorities are still investigating the crime and have found no evidence connecting it directly to the victim’s profession. Media reports indicate that the journalist’s family spoke of threats against him, but did not say who made them. There is some concern about the election campaign, which began with much anticipation 16 months before the presidential election. Politics causes tension which can be transferred to the media with anonymous and Internet campaigns against the country’s main newspapers. The leftist party FMLN tried in several ways to pressure the newspaper La Prensa Gráfica, even on an international scale. The newspaper had exercised its right not to publish an advertisement from that party. The FMLN issued complaints and organized a public attack against the paper in Congress and on radio and television. El Diario de Hoy reported that the leadership of the leftist part had decided not to give them interviews. Representatives of the newspaper El Mundo said they had received anonymous calls in the newsroom with death threats at the time it published articles on corruption and on presidential candidacies. On the other hand the Supreme Court, and especially its chief justice, Agustín García Calderón, are continuing the policy of not giving interviews or access to information. Paradoxically he had said publicly that he would change this position at the Hemisphere Conference on The Judiciary, the Press and Impunity that IAPA held in the Dominican Republic.