(IAPA/IFEX) – The following is a 7 June 2006 IAPA press release: Paraguay bill seen by IAPA as restricting information flow It also bemoans non-action on access to public records in Argentina, Honduras, Paraguay MIAMI, Florida (June 7, 2006) – The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) is concerned about a legislative bill in Paraguay which […]
(IAPA/IFEX) – The following is a 7 June 2006 IAPA press release:
Paraguay bill seen by IAPA as restricting information flow
It also bemoans non-action on access to public records in Argentina, Honduras, Paraguay
MIAMI, Florida (June 7, 2006) – The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) is concerned about a legislative bill in Paraguay which it sees as contrary to press freedom. The bill seeks to ban or to fine the dissemination of images regarded as offensive, through an administrative agency.
The Paraguayan Senate introduced the bill towards the end of last month. If passed it would prohibit the publication or broadcast of images “that seriously offend citizens’ natural feelings of mercy and respect for the dead, injured or victims” of crimes, suicide, accidents and catastrophes.
Gonzalo Marroquín, chairman of the IAPA’s Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information, declared that press freedom and freedom of expression in a society are based on the diversity and plurality of the news media’s editorial stances, “meaning that there should be no regulation or censorship that discriminates concerning news, a matter that should be confined exclusively to the question of ethics.”
Marroquín, editor of the Guatemala City, Guatemala, newspaper Prensa Libre, while acknowledging the concern caused by sensationalist reporting, said it is extremely dangerous to legislate on news content because it easily turns into setting rules – always arbitrary – on what news is good and what bad, and in that area “positions are as varied as news itself.”
The IAPA, through the Declaration of Chapultepec, a 10-point list of principles for free speech and press freedom, holds the view that “respect for ethical and professional values may not be imposed; these are the exclusive responsibility of journalists and the media; in a free society it is public opinion that rewards or punishes.”
In a further comment, the IAPA expressed regret that the Paraguayan Senate last week failed to take advantage of a new opportunity to legislate on access to public records. The IAPA had expressed a similar view last November in Argentina and recently in Honduras, where the national legislature in each case, after an intense national debate, did not approve proposals to enact laws enabling access.
In its campaign promoting enactment of public access laws the IAPA maintains that these laws are fundamental to a functioning democracy – they give everyone in the country equal opportunity to obtain knowledge of how the government and state operate. On a second level, journalists and the media benefit from having a tool essential to their investigative reporting.
In the Western Hemisphere, Canada, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Jamaica, Mexico, Panama, Peru and the United States have public access laws. Bills proposing such legislation are currently under debate in Brazil, Chile, Guatemala and Nicaragua.
