(IPYS/IFEX) – The following is an abridged version of a 26 January 2007 IPYS report: PERU: NEARLY ONE HUNDRED ATTACKS AGAINST THE PRESS IN 2006 IPYS published 96 alerts in 2006. For the fourth consecutive year, Lima and Ancash were the regions with the highest reported number of violations against press freedom. During 2006 there […]
(IPYS/IFEX) – The following is an abridged version of a 26 January 2007 IPYS report:
PERU: NEARLY ONE HUNDRED ATTACKS AGAINST THE PRESS IN 2006
IPYS published 96 alerts in 2006. For the fourth consecutive year, Lima and Ancash were the regions with the highest reported number of violations against press freedom.
During 2006 there was an average of eight attacks against the press each month. Anacash held first place with 34 incidents reported, followed by Lima with 20. Both regions have held the first and second place in attacks against press freedom since 2003.
The increased number of alerts (96 in 2006, compared to 60 in 2005 and 73 in 2004) is indicative of a serious situation, although it must be remembered that the number of journalists attacked does not strictly correspond to the number of alerts issued.
Once again, radio stations and radio journalists were victims of the largest number of attacks: 35. This is twice the number of attacks against them in 2005. Television stations and journalists were the subject of 24 alerts, and print media (newspapers, magazines, weekly and fortnightly publications) of 21.
Attacks have been divided in different categories: physical attacks were the most common (33), followed by death threats (23), perpetrated generally through phone calls or text messages to journalists’ mobile phones. There were 21 alerts about legal processes, about either the opening of a case or the further development of an existing case, as followed-up by IPYS (in several cases, as legal counsel for the journalists).
The months with the highest incidence of alerts were March (14), October (10) and November (16). Two of these coincided with electoral periods (April: presidential elections; November: municipal elections). There were five alerts about supporters of political parties who assaulted journalists, and many of the acts of aggression committed by municipal officials were related to accusations made by the press about the support they gave to mayors who wanted to be re-elected.
By category of assailant, 24 alerts involved “unidentified” persons (anonymous threats), 11 more than in 2005. Second place goes to municipal officials (10), eight more than last year. Attacks by members of the police or the Armed Forces follow (10); and fourth place goes to members of the judiciary (9), one more than in 2005.
Prominent cases
One of the most worrying cases is that of Marilú Gambini Lostanau, a freelance journalist who is in hiding after receiving several threats as a result of her investigations into drug trafficking in Chimbote, a city in northwestern Peru. She received a death threat sent to her mobile phone in March 2006 while she was covering a press conference. This took place nearly a year to the day after two unidentified men broke into her house, attacked her physically and destroyed or took with them several documents related to a drug trafficking case. The authorities have not so far begun investigating the incident.
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Trials for murder continue
There were no murders of journalists in 2006. Those organizations that campaign for the rights of the country’s media and its journalists (Consejo de la Prensa Peruana, CPP; the Inter American Press Association, IAPA; and IPYS), have worked to make sure that the investigations and legal processes against those who stand accused of the murders that took place in 2004 (Antonio de la Torre, February 2004; Alberto Rivera, April 2004) are not left unresolved.
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Controversial law
On 2 November the Peruvian Congress approved a law that curtails press freedom. Congress passed, on a second reading, amendments to Law 27692 on international cooperation, which restrict the freedom of association and freedom to establish financial relationships of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that receive financial aid from abroad. The law also grants the government the capacity to monitor funds intended to promote free expression, based on priorities established by the government and on its own definition of “public interest”.
IPYS and the Consejo de Prensa Peruana (Peruvian Press Council), the two main organizations that represent journalism in Perú, have alerted to the danger that this law poses for free expression.
Several international organizations that advocate civil rights declared themselves against the law.
President Alan García Pérez, however, signed it on 7 December.
Lawsuits
On 15 August, Carlos Navas Rondón, of the Second Public Prosecutor’s Office in Lima, requested a punishment of eight years in prison for journalist Mauricio Aguirre Corvalán, for allegedly revealing national security secrets to the detriment of the state, through the television programme “Cuarto Poder”, broadcast in Lima.
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The case is currently being seen by the Supreme Court’s Permanent Criminal Bench, after the Second Criminal Bench of Lima’s Superior Court absolved the journalist and the Public Prosecutor’s Office appealed the sentence.
Other journalists and media defended by IPYS
As well as the Antonio de la Torre and Mauricio Aguirre cases, IPYS has also represented the following journalists and media outlets:
In 2004, journalist Alejandro Guerrero filed a civil suit against “Gatopardo” magazine and journalist Juan Manuel Robles, alleging that they had damaged his honour. The plaintiff requested one million dollars as civil reparation. IPYS is currently representing both Robles and the magazine. The case is being seen by Lima’s Twenty-fifth Civil Court.
In October 2005, IPYS assumed the defense of journalist Marilú Gambini, who was accused of defamation. The case is being seen by the Transitory Criminal Bench of the Supreme Court.
That same month, journalist Omar Pari, from the town of Ilo in southwestern Peru also requested legal support from IPYS in a lawsuit filed against him by the town’s mayor, Jorge Mendoza Pérez, who accuses him of defamation. IPYS took over the case when it had reached the Supreme Court, after Moquegua’s Superior Court of Justice absolved the journalist and the mayor filed a motion to declare the sentence null and void. The First Transitory Criminal Bench of the Supreme Court absolved the journalist of all accusations in August 2006.
In October 2006, journalist Francisco Bocángel, executive director/editor of “Con. . . Tacto” magazine was accused of defamation. The process is in its initial stages in Puente Piedra’s Mixed First Instance Court.
Journalist Omar Pari asked for legal support again in December 2006 in two suits filed against him for defamation which are being seen by the Supreme Court. The first process reached the Supreme Court via an appeal for annulment, after two previous courts ruled against the journalist; the second process also reached the Supreme Court after an appeal for annulment was filed, but both previous courts had ruled in favour of the journalist.
The supreme prosecutor has ruled against the journalist once more in the first case; he has not yet presented a report regarding the second.
See the complete report (in Spanish only) at: http://www.ipys.org/info_peru.shtml
