Representatives from the Colombian Attorney General and Prosecutor's Offices asked the Supreme Court to overturn a journalist's conviction for libel, reported the newspaper El Espectador. According to the spokespersons, journalist Luis Agustín González's opinion column is protected by the right to freedom of expression and therefore cannot be charged politically or criminally, added the newspaper.
It was at the end of 2008 when González, director of the newspaper Cundinamarca Democrática, started his legal battle, reported the website Terra. The journalist published his column "No Más!" (No More!) where he wrote about the public life of Leonor Serrano de Camargo, ex-governor and former mayor of Fusagasugá, in the department of Cundinamarca, according to the website.
After the column's publication, the former official charged González with libel and slander. The Supreme Court of Cundinamarca decided the withdraw the charge of slander but maintained the criminal libel conviction that sentenced the journalist to 18 months in prison in February 2012, reported Terra.
The International Press Institue (IPI) urged the Supreme Court of Colombia to overturn the journalist's conviction, according to a statement on the group's website. "The notion that public officials should be shielded from criticism by insult laws represents a serious threat to press freedom and transparency in Colombia," said IPI Deputy Director Anthony Mills in a statement.
Mills applauded the government's "apparent attempt" to defend press freedom in the case but encouraged it to go farther and "seriously consider the abolition of all criminal defamation and insult laws," the statement continued.
The Foundation for Press Freedom and the Colombian Federation of Journalists also expressed their outrage over the conviction when the journalist was sentenced in February 2012.
Note from the editor: This story was originally published by the Knight Center’s blog Journalism in the Americas, the predecessor of LatAm Journalism Review.
