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Paraguayan court convicts Spanish citizen for attack on freedom of the press

"A court condemned an attack on freedom of the press. It was in Villarrica, where the first oral and public trial was held in Paraguay on intimidations aimed at silencing journalists. This Thursday [Aug. 3], a court of first instance in this city sentenced the Spanish citizen, Alex Castro García, to two years in prison for coercion of the Guairean [from Guairá, Paraguay] journalist, Pablo Gastón Ortiz, so he would stop publishing about his background.

Gastón celebrated the ruling, which is the maximum penalty for the crime of coercion, because, he said, it is unprecedented. 'I'm very satisfied with the conviction because it is the first attack on freedom of the press that reaches an oral and public trial, with the exception of murders. It's an exemplary precedent,' Gastón pointed out, commenting on the sentence."

Read original story (in Spanish)