RIGHTS-LATAM: Freedom of Expression in Trouble

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Néfer Muñoz

SAN JOSE, Jan 2 2003 (IPS) - The fight against pressure on the media and laws limiting freedom of expression will be a test over the next year for authorities in Latin America and the Caribbean, where 261 journalists have been killed in the past 14 years.

Last year was one of the worst in the past decade for press workers in the region, due to the increase in restrictions on reporting and attacks from governments and criminal groups, said two of the main international organisations that monitor the rights of journalists.

The fight against pressure on the media and laws limiting freedom of expression will be a test over the next year for authorities in Latin America and the Caribbean, where 261 journalists have been killed in the past 14 years.

Last year was one of the worst in the past decade for press workers in the region, due to the increase in restrictions on reporting and attacks from governments and criminal groups, said two of the main international organisations that monitor the rights of journalists.

Colombia, Haiti, Panama and Venezuela head the list in terms of limits on freedom of speech and obstacles to the exercise of their profession by reporters, spokespersons for Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and the Latin American association Journalists Against Corruption (PFC) said in interviews with IPS.

The Paris-based RSF is especially concerned about Haiti and Venezuela, where attacks on journalists have mushroomed, mainly committed by agents and supporters of the state, the director of the organisation’s Americas branch, Régis Borgeat, told IPS.

Other continuing sources of concern for RSF are Colombia, where over 100 journalists and media assistants have been killed in the course of doing their job in the past 12 years, and the restrictions faced by reporters in Cuba and Mexico.

”The situation in Colombia was already dramatic…and now we are worried about attempts by the government of Alvaro Uribe to impose restrictions on the foreign press,” said Borgeat.

The Inter-American Press Association (SIP) reported that 261 journalists have been killed in Latin America and the Caribbean since 1988, including 112 in Colombia, 37 in Mexico, 21 in Guatemala, 20 in Brazil, and 19 in Peru.

Seven press workers were killed in Latin America in 2000, 11 in 2001, and eight in 2002.

Attacks on reporters are on the rise, increasing from 114 documented cases in 2001 to 170 this year, Linda Hemby, a spokeswoman for Journalists Against Corruption (PFC), pointed out to IPS.

The El Salvador-based PFC provides resources and services to reporters involved in investigating and exposing corruption. It also offers legal assistance when journalists suffer reprisals or challenge laws, decrees or legal rulings that undermine their work.

Hemby said the reprisals and upsurge of government policies clamping down on freedom of speech are the product of an improvement in investigative reporting practices in the region, especially in terms of coverage of corruption cases.

The PFC warns that the ”professional secret” is threatened in Mexico, as seen this month when the government ordered seven journalists with the La Jornada and El Universal newspapers to reveal their sources.

Panama is another country that has long been a source of concern to the organisations that defend the rights of press workers, due to the existence of a large number of gag laws, which block the work of reporters.

According to the PFC, nearly 100 of Panama’s roughly 200 active journalists face lawsuits, many of which involve investigations into corruption cases.

More than 40 of the lawsuits were brought by government officials, including President Mireya Moscoso and Attorney-General José Antonio Sossa, or by members of the judiciary like magistrate Winston Spadafora.

”What is happening in Panama is already a continent-wide scandal,” Panamanian journalist Mónica Palm, a reporter and columnist with the daily La Prensa who is facing an arrest warrant, remarked to IPS.

In March, Palm wrote commentaries on Panamanian businessman Mayor Alfredo Alemán, who filed a lawsuit for libel.

Alemán was a member of the board of a bank that declared bankruptcy in 1996. The bank was supposedly used for money laundering by Colombian drug traffickers.

”In Panama, freedom of speech is a utopia,” said Palm. ”Although the situation is not as bad as in Cuba, the pressure from the government and powerful economic elites is enormous.”

Both the RSF and PFC have repeatedly complained about the number of gag laws in Panama, which date back more than three decades.

The last three governments, headed by presidents Guillermo Endara, Ernesto Pérez-Balladares and Mireya Moscoso, failed to live up to their campaign promises to overturn the laws, although Moscoso did so partially.

Journalists and activists agree that the outlook for press workers in Latin America and the Caribbean is anything but promising, and have issued a call to the international community to maintain the pressure to improve guarantees for freedom of speech in the region.