COLOMBIA

COLOMBIA WHEREAS the constitutional court authorized restriction of circulation of books, giving the right to privacy higher priority than that of freedom of information judges continue to file writs against the press obliging them to publish corrections even when there is evidence of the accuracy of the information or in the case of opinion columns media have been sued for their alleged invasion of the right to privacy in spite of the fact the case in question was clearly of public interest since it involved a top police commander and links with a drug cartel judges have ordered correction of information even though news media have offered the subjects the right to reply and to defend themselves the government limits the right to information (interviews, opinion surveys and exit polls) on election day THE 50TH GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE lAPA RESOLVES to exhort the courts to limit and carefully weigh their actions against the media in detriment to the full exercise of freedom of expression that has characterized Colombia to exhort the government of Colombia to abolish the restrictions to the freedom of expression on election day. Sorne undiluted successes have been recorded in the Americas this year. One was the Dedaration of Chapultepec, adopted by the Hemisphere Conference on Free Speech at Chapultepec Castle in Mexico City in March. The historie document, dedaring that "No law or act of government may limit freedom of expression or of the press, whatever the medium," establishes 10 bedrock principies of a free press. The dedaration now has been signed by the presidents of Mexico, Guatemala, Panama, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Colombia. Equally historie was the Dedaration of Santiago adopted at the Seminar on Media Development and Democracy in Latin America and the Caribbean in Santiago, Chile, in May. Participants in the seminar, sponsored by UNESCO and the U.N. Development Program, underscored in a 10-point dedaration that freedom of expression is "the cornerstone of our democracies." ]ust a few years ago, UNESCO was talking about something quite different in a proposed "New World Information Order." If the hemisphere-wide free press envisioned by these dedarations becomes a reality, the deaths of 18 journalists in the past year will not have been in vain.