Reporters Without Borders (RSF) sent an open letter to Ollanta Humala, Peru’s new president, asking him to follow through on his campaign promise to decriminalize media offenses and end existing legal cases against journalists, EFE reports.
Peru’s Congress has passed a bill replacing prison time for defamation and libel offenses with fines and community service, Perú.com reports. The change was passed June 21, but it still needs the president’s signature to become law.
Journalist Jaime Quispe, the director of Jornada newspaper in Ayacucho, Peru, received a death threat the same day he published an article about political pressure to release a regional politician’s imprisoned brother, whom he accused of being a member of a blackmail gang, the Press and Society Institute (IPYS) reports.
The National Board of Elections (JNE), Peru’s highest electoral authority, has presented a formal complaint against Uri Ben Schmuel, the director of La Razón newspaper, for not including the complete datasheet of a poll published in the paper, the Press and Society Institute (IPYS) reports.
The Supreme Court of Peru sent a bill to Congress that would imprison those who distribute recordings of private conversations obtained by illegal telephone wiretaps, Perú21 reports. Freedom of expression groups said the bill was an attempt to restrict press freedom and weaken the tools used to watchdog the authorities, Diario Ya explains.
Peruvian journalist Hans Francisco Andrade Chávez, ex-host of a news program on the local affiliate channel of América TV in Chepén, in northern Perú, was sentenced to two years in prison for defamation, according to the Press and Society Institute (IPYS in Spanish). Andrade is the most recent journalist in Peru to be convicted of libel. In April, journalist Paul Garay was sentenced to three years in jail for defamation of a prosecutor.
After a series of firings and journalists quitting because of complaints of censorship during the recent presidential campaign in Peru, the sudden cancellation of one of the most watched and credible journalistic programs in Peru has prompted a debate about freedom of expression and the impact of media monopolies on citizens' right to information.
A firebomb was thrown at a truck for the television program Juez Justo TV, which is hosted by ex-police colonel Benedicto Jiménez, reported Panamericana Televisión. The attack occurred in the Peruvian capital of Lima in the wee morning hours of Wednesday, June 29.
Some journalists in Peru have interpreted as velied threats against freedom of expression the words of president-elect Ollanta Humala during a visit to Ecuador when he met with Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa, who has a tense relationship with the press, which he has characterized as "corrupt."
The Press and Society Institute (IPYS) issued two alerts for journalists who were attacked and threatened on university campuses in Peru and Venezuela.
After Peru's polarized elections in which the mainstream media was accused of fronting a disinformation campaign, what is the role of journalism since the victory of Ollanta Humala? The renowned journalist Augusto Álvarez Rodrich wrote in La República: "Journalism that attempts to exercise the profession with decency and independence now has to proceed, with rigor, to monitor the new government, including the completion of its promises... There is no blank check, president-elect Ollanta Humala".
Nobel Prize winner Mario Vargas Llosa canceled his column in the Peruvian newspaper El Comercio in protest of its "information manipulation" during the ongoing presidential election campaign, according to the news agency EFE. The protest is part of various critiques against the newspaper for supporting candidate Keiko Fujimori and for its impartial election coverage.