More than half of Panamanians believe freedom of expression is at risk in their country, where in recent months the press has been in conflict with the government of President Ricardo Martinelli, reported the AFP news agency.
The finding comes from a March 25 survey by Unimer on the part of the newspaper La Prensa. About 54 percent of the 1,211 responses said freedom of expression in Panama is at risk, particularly in regions where protests against labor, environment and mining reforms have occurred, reported Prensa Latina.
Also, about 59 percent characterized as "abusive" the deportation of Spanish journalists Francisco Gómez Nadal and María del Pilar Chato, accused of instigating environmental protests against mining reforms, according to news agency EFE.
Freedom of the press in Panama in 2011 got off to a bad start with a proposed bill that would sentence journalists to four years in prison for offending the president. Although Martinelli made sure the initiative was withdrawn, the press has continued denouncing laws that criminalize defamation.
At the end of 2010, two reporters convicted of libel were sentenced to not practicing journalism for a year -- although the sentence was overturned --, and another journalist spent 19 days behind bars for defamation charges stemming from an article he had written a decade earlier.
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.
