The National Association of the Press of Bolivia (ANP) has said that the Life Insurance Law for media workers has “political ends” contrary to freedom of the press and could allow for “state intervention” in media companies, reported the newspaper La Razón.
The statements from the director of the ANP, Juan León, came after a spokesman for the Press Workers’ Federation of La Paz said that the law could bring government control to learn the “true incomes” of media companies, said Agencia de Noticias Fides (ANF). León said that the law “threatens the constitutional right to free press and opens the way to state intervention in the media,” added ANF.
The law was approved by President Evo Morales in May 2012, but was only promulgated in December of that year. The insurance is paid for by a 1 percent tax on advertising revenues from all media companies, public and private.
In December, the ANP, alongside journalist trade unions from La Razón and El Diario rejected the law for the “financial burden” that it could place on media companies and characterized it as a “non-consensual” law.
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.
