(IPYS/IFEX) – On 20 May 2004, several television correspondents’ videotapes were confiscated at the Tingo María airport, in the Huánuco region of eastern Peru. The incident took place when the journalists were searched before boarding a plane owned by the National Police. The correspondents were forced to travel by air because protesting coca growers had […]
(IPYS/IFEX) – On 20 May 2004, several television correspondents’ videotapes were confiscated at the Tingo María airport, in the Huánuco region of eastern Peru. The incident took place when the journalists were searched before boarding a plane owned by the National Police. The correspondents were forced to travel by air because protesting coca growers had blocked all roads out of the city.
Before conducting the searches, police officer Raúl Lupo Figueroa Codar told the boarding passengers that any videotapes they were carrying would be confiscated. No explanation was given for the measure. Tapes were confiscated from Panamericana Televisión, América Televisión and Televisión Nacional del Perú correspondents.
The action was aimed at preventing the dissemination of information about incidents that have taken place during the protests, and keep the public uninformed as to the real reasons for the vandalism and confrontations that took place when coca growers tried to take over a number of government offices. The coca growers accuse the police of having provoked them.
Other television journalists were able to save their videotapes by handing them over for safekeeping to police officers who were evacuated to the capital after the violence spread in Tingo María.
The incident demonstrates that journalists are not safe in the coca growing regions. Many coca growers consider journalists to be spokespersons for the government body responsible for combating the illegal cultivation of coca (Comisión Nacional para el Desarrollo y Vida sin Drogas, DEVIDA). They also believe that journalists distort the truth and defend government officials. The security forces, on the other hand, are being ordered by their superiors to implement measures that threaten freedom of expression.
