(IPYS/IFEX) – On the morning of 17 July 2004, Trujillo municipal security officers dismantled the Radio News of Peru’s (Radio Noticias del Perú) antenna and confiscated its broadcasting equipment. The officers, led by municipal attorney Hugo Sánchez Cortina, burst violently into the station’s offices, seizing microphones and consoles and interrupting the broadcast. The security agents […]
(IPYS/IFEX) – On the morning of 17 July 2004, Trujillo municipal security officers dismantled the Radio News of Peru’s (Radio Noticias del Perú) antenna and confiscated its broadcasting equipment. The officers, led by municipal attorney Hugo Sánchez Cortina, burst violently into the station’s offices, seizing microphones and consoles and interrupting the broadcast. The security agents produced no court order for the seizure and failed give advance warning to the station’s owner, Edilberto Barrantes Terán. Trujillo is the capital of the northern region of La Libertad.
Barrantes Terán was alerted by neighbours and went immediately to the station, where he called the Peruvian National Police and the Provincial Prosecutor’s Office to inform them of the attack.
Sánchez Cortina justified the action by stating that the radio did not have a municipal operating license. Barrantes Terán responded that the station has had the appropriate permit for more than ten years from the Transportation and Communications Ministry, the only entity authorized to issue or deny these licenses. The station’s owner added that he never received notification of the municipality’s decision to close down the station.
The seized equipment remains in the municipal warehouse.
