Prior censorship and self-censorship of the press has been imposed in the country with the enactment of two laws that threaten to shut down media and provide for imprisonment for those journalists breaking them.
They are the Anti-Racism and All Forms of Discrimination Law and the Electoral Law, which went into a effect one year ago. These legislative changes have been strongly opposed by Bolivian press organizations as placing limits on press freedom.
The first one established that the news media outlet that authorizes and publishes racist and discriminatory ideas shall be subject to economic sanctions and suspension of operating license and a journalist or news media owner incurring in such offenses shall be sentenced to one to five years in prison and there will not be any exemption.
This interpretation is left up to the arbitrary criterion of a committee made up solely of government officials, which puts its impartiality in doubt and puts media and journalists at risk of being punished for being critical of the government rather than being in favor of it.
The second statute is the Electoral Law, which refers to election of members of the judiciary, which will be held for the first time this month (October). Candidates will not be allowed to make propaganda or statements to news media about any matter connected to their nomination or their rivals at the risk of being disqualified. News media in turn, at risk of being criminally prosecuted, are prohibited from disseminating documents other than those produced by the electoral body, referring specifically to the candidates in a negative or positive way, creating space for opinions about the candidates and granting these space for their own views, conduct or participation in any program.
As an effect of these two laws, especially the anti-racist one, many media have opted to eliminate from their websites comments about their reports, explaining that these are subject under the law to prosecution. Others warn that articles written by their readers could not be published if potentially racist or discriminatory remarks are seen to be contained in them.
Both laws have not only ignored the Press Law but have required journalists to resort to self-censorship and their editors to practice prior censorship in order to avoid there being slipped into the articles words that could be interpreted as racist and discriminatory or as violating the Electoral Law stipulations.
In effect in Bolivia since 1925 is a Press Law which establishes that offenses by the press should be dealt with by press tribunals created by municipalities and that the penalty shall be retraction and monetary fines. The media have been obliged to restrict their work and limit the role of journalists.
An opinion poll carried out among a small group of reporters, editors and news editors showed that 90% admitted that the Anti-Racism and All Forms of Discrimination Law was obliging them to practice self-censorship or prior censorship to avoid potential penalties.
Legislative and executive bodies have ignored the requests and recommendations of international entities, and in particular the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navaneth Pilay, that they stop continuing to make laws that restrict human rights and repeal all those clauses of laws that limit freedom of expression.
The Congress is also excessively delaying dealing with enactment of the Citizen Initiative Law which would allow press organizations to submit a bill to repeal the clauses of the two previously-mentioned laws that affect freedom of expression, based on a rejection expressed by nearly 400,000 citizens who added their signatures to a battle for freedom of expression launched a year ago.
This year there was a significant reduction in physical attacks on journalists and news media outlets compared to previous years. However, government officials continue to blame a large part of their mistakes on news media. The media lie, The media distort statements, The media do not say exactly what was said are frequent phrases uttered by governing party political leaders, especially when their statements generate adverse reactions among the people.
According to figures compiled by Bolivias National Press Association (ANP) verbal and physical attacks from January to September this year were made on 131 journalists, of whom only one was from a state-owned media outlet, the other 130 being from independent media.
Also recorded were 40 verbal or physical attacks on news media outlets. The most concerning of these was the acquisition of the entire July 6 issue of the Pando newspaper Sol by the government of the Amazon region province to prevent the dissemination of information about alleged cases of corruption by the governor. The governors office denied a complaint by a person that the governors secretary bought all the 2,000 copies of that days paper and its editor announced he was filing lawsuit against the governors office.
The government has failed to comply with its pledges to put on trial police officers who shot at journalists in September 2009 in the city of Santa Cruz, and the Public Prosecutors Office has done nothing to solve the murder of journalist Carlos Quispe Quispe, killed during a demonstration there by pro-government political leaders in March 2008.
