(SPP/IFEX) – The following is a 13 July 1999 SPP press release: Judges harass journalists in Paraguay’s interior Judges from the city of Villarrica are pressuring and harassing journalists Nino Singuero and Noma Acuña of the Panambi Vera radio station. Their aim is to interfere in their journalistic work and to stop listeners from participating […]
(SPP/IFEX) – The following is a 13 July 1999 SPP press release:
Judges harass journalists in Paraguay’s interior
Judges from the city of Villarrica are pressuring and harassing journalists
Nino Singuero and Noma Acuña of the Panambi Vera radio station. Their aim is
to interfere in their journalistic work and to stop listeners from
participating in their radio programmes.
The judge responsible for these attacks is Norma Jara de Benitez, who is
also prosecuting workers from a sugar factory for demonstrating in the
streets. The Panambi Vera radio station reported the protests on the air.
At the end of June, the same judge had accused Singuero and Acuña of
undisciplinary conduct and had had them arrested, but after an appeal the
charges were dropped. The accusations against the journalists resulted from
their criticism of the same judge, who had given the radio station two hours
to present copies of a seven hour programme to the court.
At the beginning of July, Benitez, with the consent of criminal lawyer
Carlos Alvarenga, ordered the taping of Silguero’s afternoon programme for a
period of three months (July, August and September). Since this decision was
taken, the relationship between journalists and judges in Villarrica has
been tense.
The general assembly of Sindicato de Periodistas del Paraguay requested that
different legal organisations investigate the behavior of these Villarrica
judges, “because they do not have the constitutional or legal right to
interfere with freedom of expression since these journalists have not
committed any crime.”
Silguero and Acuña have confirmed that in spite of these difficulties, they
intend to continue their work.
During the SPP assembly, we concluded that the actions of the Villarrica
justice system were very much in line with the imprisonment of the
journalist Camilo Cantero of FM Libertad radio station, for a traffic
violation that had taken place months earlier. In that instance, Judge
Ignacio Maidana had re-opened the case after Cantero had criticised him.
The decisions by judges in Villarrica and San Ignacio threaten the work of
journalists in the country’s interior.
