(IPYS/IFEX) – In a 20 September 2000 public statement, “Gente” magazine outlined the decision reached by its director and founder, Enrique Escardo Vallejo-Gallo, and Executive Director José Enrique Escardo to withdraw complaints filed against Hugo Guerra, director of the programme Vértice, broadcast on Canal N television, Alberto Cendra, general manager of Canal N, and Gustavo […]
(IPYS/IFEX) – In a 20 September 2000 public statement, “Gente” magazine outlined the decision reached by its director and founder, Enrique Escardo Vallejo-Gallo, and Executive Director José Enrique Escardo to withdraw complaints filed against Hugo Guerra, director of the programme Vértice, broadcast on Canal N television, Alberto Cendra, general manager of Canal N, and Gustavo Gorriti, for aggravated defamation causing damages to the Gente S.A. publishing house.
According to “Gente”, the decision to withdraw the complaint was taken to express the magazine’s discomfort and protest over the removal of Judge Sonia Medina from her post with the Ninth Lima Criminal Court. IPYS reported on the judge’s dismissal on 20 September, noting that on the previous day the judge had complained that she had been instructed by a high standing member of the court on how to proceed with the case filed by the magazine.
In its public statement, “Gente” indicates that “not only has [the magazine] not played any role in putting forth these recommendations, but moreover calls for an immediate investigation by the judiciary’s internal control organisation”. The document further states that, “faced with these facts, and in order to avoid erroneous interpretations that could involve ‘Gente’, we have decided to withdraw the charges, and regret the fact that our efforts to defend our honour has been politicised in this way…”
As IPYS reported on 4 September, at the end of August, “Gente” filed a complaint against Guerra, Cendra and Gorriti, after Gorriti said that the aforementioned magazine was part of a press which “had submitted to being scribes, to being agents of the National Intelligence Agency (Servicio de Inteligencia Nacional, SIN)” and had been converted into “lumpen journalists.” These statements were made on the 4 June episode of the television programme Vértice, in an interview held by Guerra and other journalists (see IFEX alert of 13 September 2000).
At the time, the director of Vértice had referred to an article published in “Gente” on 24 May, entitled “Last minute: plan for vacations in 2000 underway”, which stated that “The National Intelligence Service is preparing an operation to have opposition journalists and dissidents of the regime disappear”.
