Uruguay I

WHEREAS a resolution on press freedom and privacy by the attorney general, Dr. Oscar Darío Peri Valdez, has recently come to light in Uruguay, and was disseminated among prosecutors as an advisory document for their work WHEREAS the document accepts the right to know as part of freedom of speech, which he considers a collective and social right, which is relative, not an individual right inherent to human beings, and the attorney general considers codes of ethics key elements for judging journalists’ activity and press freedom issues, citing in particular the code of ethics included in Venezuela’s obligatory licensing law and an international code of journalistic ethics that he presents as being from UNESCO WHEREAS the Uruguayan Press Association rejected Attorney General Peri Váldez’s resolution as a threat to press freedom inspired by the philosophy of the military dictatorship WHEREAS Principle 5 of the Declaration of Chapultepec establishes that “Prior censorship, restrictions on the circulation of the media or dissemination of their reports, forced publication of information, the imposition of obstacles to the free flow of news, and restrictions on the activities and movements of journalists directly contradict freedom of the press “ THE MIDYEAR MEETING OF THE IAPA RESOLVES to denounce the totalitarian philosophy concerning freedom of speech that Attorney General Dr. Oscar Dário Peri Váldez is trying to put into practice in support of the laws of libel and contempt, expressed in a resolution distributed to prosecutors that includes the most regressive precedents on this matter to inform the World Coordinatng Committee on Press Freedom and the OAS special rapporteur for freedom of expression of this initiative that could become, and in fact is, one more attempt to resuscitate the New World Information order and to tell them to remain vigilant.