(CPJ/IFEX) – In a 15 June 2004 letter to Pablo Salazar Mendiguchía, governor of the state of Chiapas, CPJ condemned Chiapas’ recent enactment of penal code reforms that impose severe criminal penalties for defamation. On 17 February, the 40 parliamentary deputies of the Chiapas state congress unanimously approved amendments to Articles 164, 169, and 173 […]
(CPJ/IFEX) – In a 15 June 2004 letter to Pablo Salazar Mendiguchía, governor of the state of Chiapas, CPJ condemned Chiapas’ recent enactment of penal code reforms that impose severe criminal penalties for defamation.
On 17 February, the 40 parliamentary deputies of the Chiapas state congress unanimously approved amendments to Articles 164, 169, and 173 of the state’s penal code. The amendments were published in the state’s official journal on 25 February and entered into effect on 26 May.
Articles 164 and 169 in their most recent versions raise minimum penalties for the crimes of defamation and libel from two to three years and maximum penalties from five to nine years. In addition, the amended articles make defamation and libel felonies and impose heavier fines.
Laws that criminalise speech that does not incite lawless violence are incompatible with the right to freedom of expression as established under Article 13 of the American Convention on Human Rights, which Mexico has ratified, notes CPJ. As the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) stated in 1994, “Considering the consequences of criminal sanctions and the inevitable chilling effect they have on freedom of expression, criminalisation of speech can only apply in those exceptional circumstances when there is an obvious and direct threat of lawless violence.”
More recently, the IACHR’s Declaration of Principles on Freedom of Expression, approved in October 2000, reaffirmed that “the protection of a person’s reputation should only be guaranteed through civil sanctions in those cases in which the person offended is a public official, a public person, or a private person who has voluntarily become involved in matters of public interest.”
Several local and regional organisations have protested the reforms. In early June, with legal help from the Mexico City-based access to information group Libertad de Información-México A.C., journalists in Chiapas filed suits in a federal district court in the state capital, Tuxtla Gutiérrez, that challenged the constitutionality of the penal code reforms.
CPJ rejects all criminal penalties for defamation, but believes these reforms are especially pernicious because they reclassify defamation as a felony. Because of this change, journalists who are tried for defamation will no longer be able to be released on bail while criminal proceedings are pending. Because the penalties for criminal defamation have been increased so drastically, journalists who are convicted and sentenced to more than four years in prison will no longer be able to have their sentences suspended or commuted to probation.
Likewise, new provisions added to Article 173 hold media owners, managers, and publishers liable for defamation and libel if the author of an article is unknown or if he or she lives outside the state.
CPJ is dismayed that the governor of Chiapas supported the penal code reforms and that they were approved with little discussion. According to local news reports, the governor rejected attempts to delay the enforcement of the new provisions and has claimed that the reforms guarantee the free dissemination of ideas.
Although a consensus has emerged in the Western Hemisphere that defamation should be decriminalised, Chiapas has moved in the opposite direction, says CPJ. The toughening of criminal defamation provisions constitutes a setback for freedom of expression in Chiapas, and in Mexico as a whole.
