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Peru
It is clear that the press is free in Peru because of
the many types of coverage and the presence of many media outlets which express,
from differing points of view, the climate in which Peru’s restored democracy
is developing.
On February 4, the executive branch promulgated a regulation modifying the Law
on Transparency and Access to Public Information which had sparked IAPA protests
when it was implemented initially in August 2002. The amended version of the
law now includes almost all the proposals of the Peruvian Press Council and
the Ombudsman’s Office concerning national security restrictions and officials’
responsibility. Destruction of state information is prohibited and time limits
are set for the government to fulfill citizens’ requests for information.
On the other hand, it is worrisome that the executive branch, using its powers
to amend anti-terrorist legislation, approved a decree governing the nullification
of treason trials and journalistic coverage of them. The decree published in
the official gazette, El Peruano, on February 12, provides that since trials
must be public, or they will be nullified, “bringing in or using video
cameras, audio recorders, camera or other similar technical equipment”
is not permitted. This provision violates Article 215 of the Code of Criminal
Procedures which says the judge must decide whether journalists’ equipment
may be admitted and used at trials.
In light of the changes in the shareholders and managements of the broadcast
television channels Canal 4, América Televisión, and Canal 5,
Panamericana Televisión, sectors critical of the government warned of
alleged government intervention to promote a favorable editorial line.
In the case of Canal 4, a business group made up of the El Comercio group, República
de Perú group and Grupo Caracol of Colombia, merged in the new company
Plural TV, acquired most of the debts of the insolvent Canal 4 de Televisión,
which were held by private companies, with the intention of directing its financial
turnaround.
In the case of Canal 5, on February 21, after one year and two months of litigation,
a Lima judge approved an order reinstating Genaro Delgado Parker as manager
of Panamericana Televisión and Grupo Pantel and suspending the shareholders’
rights of Ernesto Schutz Landázuri, his relatives and other minority
shareholders.
The congressional oversight committee summoned César Almeyda Tasayco,
the ex-president of the National Institute to Defend Competition and Protect
Intellectual Property (INDECOPI) and now president of the National Intelligence
Center, to answer questions about newspaper stories that linked him to conversations
with former executives of Canal 5. Tasayco, a friend and lawyer of President
Toledo, was asked whether he had offered protection to the former executives
in exchange for favorable press coverage of the government.
In October, Congressman Jorge Mufarech filed a lawsuit against the daily El
Comercio, alleging that the newspaper had damaged his good name by publishing
an investigation of irregularities in the alleged importation of a Jaguar from
Chile in March 1997. The $50 million lawsuit, which also names the paper’s
editor, Alejandro Miró Quesada Cisneros, was accepted by a criminal court
in Lima and is being tried.
Mufarech also sued the editor of the daily La Razón, Guillermo Thorndike
saying the paper had altered a photograph of him to damage his image. The suit
was accepted by a criminal court in Lima.
On January 23, publicist Augusto Bresani León, named as the ex-press
secretary of Vladimir Montesinos, arrived in Lima after being expelled from
the United States. Bresani, who was detained by Peruvian authorities, has been
accused of receiving $100,000 from the Intelligence Service to distribute among
the so-called chicha newspapers in exchange for the publication of headlines
favoring the reelection of Alberto Fujimori and libeling opposition politicians
and the independent press. Upon arrival in Lima, Bresani offered to cooperate
in the investigation and accused several journalists of receiving money to support
the “dirty war” against opponents of the government.
On February 10, after four years of litigation, a Lima court decided to overturn
the lawsuit the company Alliance S.A.C., owned by the fugitive former executive
of ATV Canal 9, Julio Vera Abad, had brought against journalist César
Hildebrandt. The company asked for damages of $250,000 for alleged breach of
contract between the journalist and the TV channel. Abad appears in one of the
notorious videotapes made by Montesinos in 1998 at National Intelligence Service
headquarters. It shows a conversation in which he and Montesinos agree to use
the courts to harm Hildebrandt.
On March 2, an anti-corruption court, headed by Inés Villa Bonilla, authorized
the extension of the detention of Samuel and Mendel Winter by 36 months. The
shareholders of the television station Frecuencia Latina, Canal 2 are on trial
for alleged embezzlement and criminal conspiracy and links to the government
of Alberto Fujimori. The businessmen are being held in Miguel Castro Castro
and San Jorge jails, respectively.
The following is a chronological list of other events concerning press freedom:
On November 3, police officers of Trujillo and Tumbes detained Roberto Villacorta
Cortina, an alleged terrorist implicated in the murder of Todd Smith, a North
American journalist of the Tampa Tribune. Smith was found dead with signs of
torture in November 1989 in Uchiza. He had been investigating ties between drug
traffickers and the Peruvian armed forces in that area.
On December 17, during the 15th birthday party for Zarai Toledo, second daughter
of President Alejandro Toledo, in Los Portales Hotel in Piura, Miguel Ciccia,
a former congressman, attacked Paola Ugaz and Marcos Sifuentes, journalists
of the program Entre Lineas which is broadcast on Canal N television. He smashed
their video camera to the floor.
On January 29, seven journalists were attacked by members of a construction
union federation while covering a protest mach in Lima’s Plaza 2 de Mayo.
They are Lan Ortiz and Santiago Bravo of the daily Peru 21, Ismael Tasayco and
Iván Ahumada of Red Global de Televisión, Rosario Rengifo of America
Televisión, Marcos Rojas of the daily La República and Jaime Razuri
of Agence France-Presse. The demonstrators hit the journalists with metal rods
and sticks.
On January 26, Carlos Iván Degregori, a member of the Truth and Reconciliation
Commission, said that even 20 years after the killing of eight journalists in
Uchuraccay, in Ayacucho province, the statute of limitations has not run out.
He said it is still possible to reopen the case if new evidence is found. The
commission is analyzing the file of the killings of Jorge Luis Mendivil and
Willy Retto of the daily El Observador, Eduardo de la Pinella and Pedro Sánchez
of the daily Marka; Jorge Sedano of the daily La República, and Amador
García of the magazine Oiga; as well as correspondents Félix Gavilán
and Octavio Infante on January 26, 1983.
On February 8, Interpol informed Anti-corruption Judge Sara Mayta Dorregaray,
that the former president of Andina de Televisión (ATV Canal 9), Julio
Vera Abad, who is accused of having benefited illegally from his association
with former presidential adviser Vladimiro Montesinos, was in Miami. The judge
asked the chief judge of the Lima Court Víctor Raúl Mansilla to
request that he be held for extradition as a fugitive from justice in Peru.
On February 10, Judge Magali Bascones ordered the preventive attachment of up
to 30 million soles of the assets of the owners of the newspaper La Razón,
Alex Wolfenson Woloch and former congressman Moisés Wolfenson Woloch
to ensure the satisfaction of a judgment. The Wolfensons are under house arrest
during their trial for alleged complicity and embezzlement. The prosecutor’s
office alleges that the Wolfenson brothers coordinated articles favorable to
Fujimori’s election campaign in the newspapers El Chino and El Men, published
by the Wolfensons’ company Editora Sport directly with Montesinos.
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