(RSF/FPJQ/IFEX) – The following is a 19 April 2001 RSF and FPJQ press release: Third Summit of the Americas (Quebec, 20-22 April 2001) Nearly 90 per cent of murders of journalists go unpunished. Twenty countries taking part in the Summit still have laws that can send journalists to prison for press offences. As the third […]
(RSF/FPJQ/IFEX) – The following is a 19 April 2001 RSF and FPJQ press release:
Third Summit of the Americas
(Quebec, 20-22 April 2001)
Nearly 90 per cent of murders of journalists go unpunished.
Twenty countries taking part in the Summit still have laws that can send journalists to prison for press offences.
As the third Summit of the Americas opens, Reporters sans frontières (Reporters Without Borders, RSF – www.rsf.fr) and the Professional Federation of Quebec Journalists (Fédération professionnelle des journalistes du Québec, FPJQ – www.fpjq.org) note that impunity is still the norm in 90 per cent of the cases of murdered journalists. Since 1991, 90 media workers have been killed in 11 of the 34 countries taking part in the Summit, but only 10 of the investigations into these murders have led to a trial. The two organisations are also concerned about the continued existence of laws in 20 of the countries represented at the Summit that provide for imprisonment for press offences. In addition, RSF and the FPJQ draw participants’ attention to the case of Bernardo Arévalo Padron, a journalist in Cuba who is the only member of the profession in the hemisphere in prison for having exercised his right to inform.
Nearly 90 per cent of murders of journalists go unpunished
Ninety journalists have been killed since 1991 for expression their opinions in 11 countries taking part in the Summit — Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Guatemala, Haiti, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela. There were trials in only 10 of these cases, mostly only of the people hired to kill the victims. In a further case, in Uruguay, the murderer killed himself immediately after carrying out the deed.
More than a third of the killings – 33 journalists – took place in Colombia, making it the most dangerous country in the hemisphere for media workers, who have long been the target of the country’s drug traffickers and corrupt officials. In recent years, they have become “military targets” for extreme right-wing paramilitary forces and leftist guerrillas. In the deadly battle between these two camps, journalists are not seen as neutral observers but as suspected supporters of “the other side.” Only three of the murders have resulted in trials. The 13 August 1999 killing of well-known journalist and satirist Jaime Garzon was blamed on Carlos Castaño, commander of the paramilitary Colombian United Self-Defence Forces (AUC) and a warrant for his arrest was issued. But Castaño, whose organisation has close ties with elements in the army, remains at large and untouchable. About 20 similar warrants have been issued for his arrest, but the authorities have not been able to detain him. However several journalists have been able to interview him in person in recent months.
Impunity is also the norm in Brazil, Mexico and Peru. In each of these countries, a dozen journalists have been murdered in the past 10 years. In Peru, most of the killings were during the years the Shining Path guerrilla was active, but in Brazil and Mexico, the murders continue and some parts of those countries have become especially dangerous for media workers. In Mexico, at least three journalists were killed along the United States border, where drug smugglers are active. Benjamin Flores González, chief editor of the daily paper La Prensa, of San Luis Río Colorado, was killed on 15 July 1997 after reporting that there were alleged links between the state governor and drug lords. Flores had also criticised the comfortable prison life of drug trafficker Jaime González Gutierrez, who was released in March 1999 for want of evidence. Nearly four years later, the investigation is getting nowhere. Four people arrested soon after the murder are still in jail and two of them say they signed confessions under torture.
In Brazil, seven of the 13 journalists murdered since 1991 have come from the state of Bahia. One of them, Manoel Leal de Oliveira, editor of the Itabuna weekly A Região, killed on 14 January 1998, had attacked the town’s mayor, Fernando Gomes. Nobody has been arrested in the case. Leal de Oliveira’s son Marcel has stated several times in the press that Marcone Sarmento, officially wanted as one of the suspected killers, is freely walking the streets of Itabuna. The lack of a trial in each of these cases suggests it may be unwise to entrust investigations to local police when some of their members or local elected officials are often suspected of being directly involved.
In Haiti, six people have been arrested on suspicion of murdering the country’s leading journalist, Jean Dominique, director of Radio Haiti Inter, on 3 April last year, but those who ordered the killing have still not been identified. The investigation was nearly cut short several times. Last June, Jean Wilner Lalanne, thought to have been the link-man between the masterminds and the actual killers, died in mysterious circumstances after being arrested. For several months, the country’s Senate opposed the investigating judge’s attempt to question a senator about the killing. The judge has been threatened and intimidated and his predecessor resigned from the case after likewise coming under pressure. Following the inauguration of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide on 7 February this year, many people think a successful investigation depends on how much support the new government is prepared to give it. The murder of the well-known Dominique is seen by Haiti’s journalists as a warning to them all.
More than half the countries taking part in the Summit still have laws that can send journalists to prison for press offences
In 20 of the 34 countries attending the Summit, journalists can be jailed for press offences. These countries include: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela. By imposing penalties out of proportion to the offences, such laws can lead in some countries to self-censorship by journalists.
Defamation, slander or libel are punished in 17 of these countries by penalties of (as in Canada) up to five years in prison. According to the Organisation of American States (OAS) Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression, Santiago Canton, 16 of the countries at the Summit have laws protecting the “honour” of government and elected officials. Reporting on corruption or embezzlement of public funds by officials, mayors or cabinet ministers can be deemed an “insult” punishable by a heavy prison term. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) says such laws contravene the right of citizens to free and independent information about the activities of government officials.
Fortunately these laws are rarely applied these days, except in Panama, where laws against “insults” give government officials the right to summarily imprison journalists for supposed lack of respect for an official’s position. The penalties range from three days in prison to two months (for “insulting” the president). Carlos Singares, editor of the daily paper El Siglo, was jailed for eight days on 28 July last year by the state prosecutor, José Antonio Sossa, for having printed the remarks of a lawyer accusing Sossa of paedophilia. In March this year, four journalists were convicted of “defamation” and jailed for between a year and 18 months. About 40 Panamanian journalists have been prosecuted for “defamation” or “insults.”
In Chile, the threat represented by the State security law should soon disappear after the approval by the Chamber of Deputies on 10 April this year of a new press law that replaces article 6b of the state security law which had provided for up to five years in prison for “insults or defamation” of senior state officials. Twenty journalists have been prosecuted under this law since 1990. Among them is Alejandra Matus, whose offence was to write “The Black Book of Chilean Justice” in which she attacked “corruption, nepotism and abuses of power” by the country’s judiciary. After being threatened with arrest, she became in September 1999 the first Chilean citizen to be granted political asylum abroad since the return of democracy to Chile in 1990. The new press law should enable her to return safely to her country.
Cuba: Bernardo Arévalo Padron, the last journalist prisoner of conscience in the Americas
As the third Summit of the Americas opens, the Cuban Bernardo Arévalo Padron is the only journalist in the hemisphere in prison for his opinions and as a result of his journalistic work. He could be freed early after serving half his sentence but he is still in jail. He now has two and a half more years to go. He was sentenced on appeal, on 28 November 1997, to six years imprisonment for “insulting” President Fidel Castro and Vice-President Carlos Lage in an interview with a Miami radio station. He had called them “liars” for not having kept the promise to respect human rights they made at the 1996 Ibero-American Summit.
Arévalo Padron was beaten on 23 April 1998 by two security officials in the Ariza top-security prison where he was first held, leaving him with head injuries and memory problems. In May 1999, he was moved to various labour camps where he weeded fields and cut sugar cane. He now has a heart disorder and back problems.
Despite the Cuban constitution’s ban on private ownership of the media “under any circumstances,” Arévalo Padron set up an independent news agency, Línea Sur Press, in Cienfuegos province in October 1996. Today, about 100 freelance journalists, working for a score of independent agencies, are trying to exercise their right to inform. They are systematically harassed by the authorities. A total of 89 journalists have been arrested over the past two years and nearly 50 have gone into exile since 1995.
Conclusions and recommendations
At the last Americas Summit, in Santiago de Chile in 1998, the post of Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression, attached to the OAS’s Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), was created. The work done since then by Santiago Canton, who was appointed to the post in late 1998, has proved effective and constructive.
The Quebec Summit is an opportunity for participating countries to take new steps to show their determination to guarantee press freedom in the hemisphere. Since impunity and repressive legislation are the main problems for press freedom in the Americas, RSF and the FPJQ call on the governments attending the Summit:
– to pass a resolution promising to make the fight against impunity a priority and to do all they can to see that the murders of journalists do not go unpunished. The two organisations note that the Declaration of Principles on Freedom of Expression approved by the 108th session of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in October 2000, says that governments have a “duty to investigate” the killings of journalists and to “punish their perpetrators.”
– to pass a resolution promising to scrap laws providing jail sentences for press offences. RSF and the FPJQ note that, in a report adopted in January 2000, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of the Right to Freedom of Expression and Opinion stated clearly that “imprisonment as punishment for the peaceful expression of an opinion constitutes a serious violation of human rights”. Article 11 of the Declaration of Principles on Freedom of Expression says that “laws that penalize offensive expressions directed at public officials restrict freedom of expression and the right to information.”
The two organisations also call on the participating governments:
– to reaffirm their support for the OAS’s Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression and to implement the Declaration of Principles on Freedom of Expression approved by the IACHR at its 108th session.
– to pass a resolution asking the Cuban authorities to free Bernardo Arévalo Padron and to legalise independent news agencies.
