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GUATEMALA During the last six months there have been no violent incidents, but there are still isolated threats against journalists, mostly outside the capital. At the same time, Congress has not acted on important laws that could affect free news gathering, for better or worse. In the legal sphere, a favorable development is the challenge to an article of the Penal Code that defined contempt as a crime. The Constitutional Court accepted the appeal by the Guatemalan Chamber of Journalism, and temporarily suspended the provision. A final ruling by the court is awaited, although it has become known that some of the judges, who have been criticized in the press, are now opposed to the appeal. The situation of the two bills that could affect journalists’ work in Congress has not changed. Both are awaiting debate and approval. The first is a package of amendments to the Electoral and Political Party Law, including restrictions on the use of opinion polls during the election campaign. This prohibition is totally unconstitutional, since it restricts Article 35 of the Constitution which refers broadly to freedom of expression. The other bill involves a general Freedom of Information law, which was proposed almost four years ago and is still shelved in the Congress. No political group has shown any interest in debating and approving it even though there is a popular demand for greater openness and transparency in public information. One journalist who was threatened is Edwin Paxtor, Prensa Libre correspondent in the department of Chiquimula, who has reported that the threats came from the Criminal Investigation Service of the National Civil Police. He has presented the case to the Human Rights Ombudsman. Other correspondents outside the capital have also reported being intimidated or threatened, but it is not yet known if this is a government policy. Relations between the government and the press, which in the two earlier periods were tense and characterized by overt harassment of journalists, are now more respectful. However, high-level officials continuously express their irritation because the media, especially the written press, do not publish what they call “good news.”
Copyright © 2003 Inter American Press Association. All rights reserved. . |
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