(WiPC/IFEX) – The WiPC of International PEN welcomes the release of journalist Javier Tuanama Valera on 16 November 2002 and calls upon the authorities to set free the one print journalist still in prison in Peru on highly dubious terrorism charges. Tuanama was the editor-in-chief of “Hechos” magazine. He was arrested in March 1994 and […]
(WiPC/IFEX) – The WiPC of International PEN welcomes the release of journalist Javier Tuanama Valera on 16 November 2002 and calls upon the authorities to set free the one print journalist still in prison in Peru on highly dubious terrorism charges.
Tuanama was the editor-in-chief of “Hechos” magazine. He was arrested in March 1994 and sentenced by a “faceless judge” to ten years’ imprisonment in November 1994 after being accused of being a member of the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA). He was released under the terms of a pardon extended by President Alejandro Toledo.
Tuanama’s release leaves just one print journalist, Juan de Mata Jara Berrospi, in prison on terrorist charges in Peru. At the time of his arrest in July 1993, Berrospi was the director of “El Informador” newspaper and a writer of poetry. In September 1994, he was convicted of “collaborating with a terrorist group” (Sendero Luminoso) and sentenced to 20 years’ imprisonment. The verdict was passed by one of the notorious “faceless” tribunals, a panel of judges who routinely used the anonymity provided for them by the state to hand down lengthy sentences on the flimsiest of evidence.
Berrospi was accused based on the fact that he possessed maps of an area where the military had carried out an infamous massacre, and that he had worked for another newspaper, “El Diario”, which was alleged to have links with Sendero Luminoso. The fact that the maps were in fairly wide circulation in Peru and were being used by Berrospi in his investigations into the crime was not taken into account. During the trial, the journalist constantly denied any involvement with Sendero Luminoso. There was no testimony against him, and no documents, arms or explosives were found in his possession to corroborate the accusation.
Since then, numerous reviews of his case have failed to result in his release. He was so desperate at the lack of progress that he staged a hunger-strike in September 2000 with then fellow prisoner Antero Gargurevich Oliva. In addition, the shanty-town home in which Berrospi’s elderly parents live has been attacked and looted twice, on both occasions shortly after they had publicised their son’s case in the media.
The journalist, who was one of the prisoners highlighted by WiPC on International Writers in Prison Day this year, was interviewed once again by officials from the Pardons Commission on 11 December 2002 but the outcome of the meeting is not yet known.
In the last two years, journalists Simon Yehude Munaro, Pedro Carranza Ugaz, Gargurevich Oliva, Hermes Rivera Guerrero and Tuanama have all been released after spending up to nine years in prison on terrorism charges, brought during the regime of disgraced former president Alberto Fujimori (see IFEX alerts of 10 January 2002, 5 October and 23 April 2001, 6 December 2000, and others).
Recommended Action
Send appeals to authorities:
– thanking President Toledo for his intervention in the Tuanama case
– calling upon the authorities to release Berrospi as a matter of urgency
Appeals To
Dr. Alejandro Toledo Manrique
President of the Republic
Presidente de la República
E-mail: sepres@presidencia.gob.pe
Dra. Bertha Cardozo
Pardons Commission
Comision Permanente de Calificacion de Indultos
E-mail: bcardozo@minjus.gob.pe
Dr. Humberto Alvarado Dodero
Ministry of Justice, National Human Rights Council
Consejo Nacional de Derechos Humanos del Ministerio de Justicia
E-mail: iangeles@minjus.gob.pe
Please copy appeals to the source if possible.