After controversy sparked by a language in a bill that created crimes of “media violence," referring to content that disparages or satirizes women, the Supreme Court decided to withdraw the bill, barely more than a week after it was originally submitted to the National Assembly, EFE and La Prensa report.
According to El Heraldo, the bill, brought to the Assembly floor by the Supreme Court itself, would have imposed fines against media owners and journalists that “offend, injure, satirize, degrade a woman for the fact that she is a woman.” That specific language was part of a draft law that intends to combat the increase in crimes against women that has taken place in Nicaragua in recent years.
The Inter America Press Association (IAPA) had said the law would lead to “absurd censorship, self-censorship and serious repression of journalists and the news media.”
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.
