By Tito Drago
MADRID, Mar 24 2000 (IPS)

The international journalist organisation ‘Reporters Sans Frontieres’ (RSF, Journalists Without Borders) demands freedom of the press for Peru, appealing Friday to the Organisation of American States (OAS) and the US-based Carter Centre to apply pressure on the Alberto Fujimori government.

RSF denounced what it says is a series of attacks on press freedoms in Peru, committed or ordered by the government or its agencies, and asked the observers from the OAS and the Carter Centre to take these occurrences into account as they assess the country’s electoral campaign.

RSF, which is headquartered in Paris and headed by journalist Fernando Castello of Spain’s Efe news agency, uses international campaigns to defend freedom of expression and protect reporters and press media against censorship, repression or physical attacks.

The organisation sent letters to Eduardo Stein, head of the election observers mission at the OAS, and to Charles Costello, director of the Carter Centre’s Democracy Programme. Both groups hold observer status for Peru’s April 9 general elections.

The major problem, according to the journalist organisation, is that Peruvian reporters cannot count on the nation’s courts to defend their rights. The independence of the Judicial branch has not been guaranteed since 1992, when the Executive branch installed a system of “provisional judges,” which it controls.

Then, in July 1999, the government under president Fujimori, who is seeking a third consecutive term in the upcoming elections, announced it no longer recognised the jurisdiction of the Inter- American Human Rights Court, “thus depriving Peruvian nationals of all recourse before an international court,” says RSF.

The organisation also pointed out that Lima’s ‘El Comercio’ newspaper risks being taken over by the government because it published evidence of the falsification of more than half of the two million signatures gathered in support of Fujimori’s re- election bid.

According to the newspaper, members of the political coalition that backs the president were involved in the incident.

The principal opposition daily, ‘La República,’ is the target of attacks by a dozen sensationalist, “yellow journalism” newspapers that are controlled “by the government’s information services,” according to the world journalist organisation.

These newspapers, says RSF, systematically refer to Gustavo Mohme, editor of La Republica, in personally degrading terms and claim he has ties to insurgent groups such as the Shining Path and the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement.

In another journalistic arena, RSF points out that the government controls television broadcasting because more than two-thirds of advertising expenditures come from the State, citing a report by Peru’s Ombudsman, Jorge Santistevan.

According to the National Advertising Association of Peru (ADAN), the largest advertiser in the country is the Ministry of the Presidency. In addition to this financial pressure on the media, the State can grant or withhold television broadcasting concessions.

Peru’s National Intelligence Service (SIN) is also engaged in actions against press freedoms, according to the RSF letters, using repressive measures against specific journalists and wire- tapping media-related telecommunications.

“Black lists” of Peruvian journalists are in circulation, says RSF, including one that appears on an Internet web-site belonging “to a mysterious organisation called Aprodev, whose director apparently has links with SIN.”o

In its letter, RSF asks Stein to recommend before the OAS that it apply sanctions against Peru if the country’s authorities do not implement measures to guarantee the independence of the press.

Peru has also received sharp criticism for its lack of press freedoms from the Inter-American Press Association, the US Congress, the Inter-American Human Rights Court and the OAS itself.

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