(IPYS/IFEX) – Journalist Oscar Díaz’s political radio programme, La Revista del Momento (News of the Moment), which is broadcast on the station Radio Miraflores, was publicly censored by the station’s owner, journalist Ricardo Palma. The censorship occurred as a result of separate interviews Díaz did with exiled businessman Baruch Ivcher and exiled former president Alan […]
(IPYS/IFEX) – Journalist Oscar Díaz’s political radio programme, La Revista del Momento (News of the Moment), which is broadcast on the station Radio Miraflores, was publicly censored by the station’s owner, journalist Ricardo Palma. The censorship occurred as a result of separate interviews Díaz did with exiled businessman Baruch Ivcher and exiled former president Alan García Pérez, which ran on his programme the weekend of 8 January 2000. (For information on the Ivcher case, see IFEX alerts of 14 January 2000, 11 November, 9 November, 26 October, 8 October, 23 August, 12 August 1999 and others.)
According to “Liberacion” newspaper, on Monday 10 January, two days after Díaz’s interviews with Ivcher and García, Palma went on air in his own programme, Buenos días, señor presidente (Good Day, Mr. President), and censored Díaz’s programme. Palma maintained that the day the interviews aired, he was travelling, and therefore did not authorise the broadcast. Palma also stated that he “hates the sight of” García and Ivcher.
Of interest is the fact that two years earlier, Palma himself was detained in a Lima jail, allegedly because of tax crimes. He maintained that his arrest was due to persecution by the regime. After his imprisonment in July 1997, Palma expressed his solidarity with Ivcher and his journalists as a result of the abuses that were being committed against Ivcher and his television channel.
Neither Palma, nor the Radio Miraflores public relations office have responded to the questions of the press surrounding the recent incident, which illustrates the pressures against press freedom in Peru. Díaz refused to comment on the occurrence, saying “we have already come to an understanding and everything will continue as it normally would.”
