(RSF/IFEX) – In a letter to Attorney General José Antonio Sossa, RSF protested the order to detain Carlos Singares, editor of the “El Siglo” daily. RSF asked Sossa to repeal his 25 May 2000 ruling. Robert Ménard, RSF’s secretary-general, noted that in January, the United Nations special rapporteur for freedom of opinion and expression remarked […]
(RSF/IFEX) – In a letter to Attorney General José Antonio Sossa, RSF protested the order to detain Carlos Singares, editor of the “El Siglo” daily. RSF asked Sossa to repeal his 25 May 2000 ruling. Robert Ménard, RSF’s secretary-general, noted that in January, the United Nations special rapporteur for freedom of opinion and expression remarked that “a prison sentence as punishment for the peaceful expression of an opinion is a serious affront on human rights.”
According to the information collected by RSF, on 25 May, Attorney General Sossa ordered that Singares, editor of the “El Siglo” daily, be detained for eight days. Singares is accused of having published a report “whose content is an attack on [the attorney general’s] dignity, honour and decency”. On 24 May, the daily published an article accusing Sossa of applying pressure on Prosecutor Roberto Murgas Torraza, and “forcing him to make a ruling that went against his principles” in a defamation case. Torraza finally resigned from his post in January, after having denounced the
“institutional terrorism” and the pressures he had been subjected to by Sossa.
Panamanian law authorises the attorney general to pass prison sentences of up to eight days without a trial process and with no possibility of the decision being appealed.
