(IAPA/IFEX) – The following is a 7 April 2004 IAPA press release: IAPA concerned about anti-press freedom criminal law reforms in Mexico MIAMI, Florida (April 7, 2004) – The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) said today it is extremely concerned about changes being made to the Penal Code in a number of Mexican states that […]
(IAPA/IFEX) – The following is a 7 April 2004 IAPA press release:
IAPA concerned about anti-press freedom criminal law reforms in Mexico
MIAMI, Florida (April 7, 2004) – The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) said today it is extremely concerned about changes being made to the Penal Code in a number of Mexican states that provide for stiffer jail sentences in the case of convicted journalists. The organization said these changes restrict freedom of the press.
The IAPA’s Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information, through its chairman, Rafael Molina, joined the protests launched by journalists in the state of Chiapas, who are demanding that Governor Pablo Salazar Mendiguchía address the Penal Code reforms passed unanimously by the state legislature on February 17. The changes raise the penalty for those found guilty of criminal defamation and libel from three to nine years’ imprisonment and fines would increase from the equivalent of 100 to 1,000 days’ pay – the highest in the country.
The amendments, due to go into effect on May 26, require the owners, managers or editors of news media to publish the court ruling in such cases and set a fine equivalent to two days’ pay for each day of failure to publish the ruling after being notified of it.
Molina, of the Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, newspaper El Nacional, said, “In some Mexican states there is a great contradiction relative to the trend we are seeing in Latin America to decriminalize libel and defamation. The meting out of jail terms represents a restriction of press freedom.”
“We see another major contradiction in Mexico,” Molina added, “in that while, on one hand, the state of Chiapas is taking this backward step, on the other hand, on February 20, in Mexico City the introduction of a legislative bill that seeks to remove defamation and libel as offenses under the Penal Code was announced. The bill was brought forward on the grounds that the criminalisation of these offenses restricts criticism of the authorities and limits the free practice of journalism by bringing self-censorship in the news media as a consequence.”
In its report on the status of press freedom in Mexico presented to the IAPA’s Midyear meeting in the Mexican city of Los Cabos in March, the organization had expressed concern at the fact that, on February 12, the Aguascalientes state legislature had passed, on first reading, a bill introduced by the state government that would reinstitute libel and defamation as criminal offenses under the state’s Penal Code. Libel and defamation as criminal offenses had been removed from the Penal Code in May 2003.
