“Peru was an example of freedom of expression and now I would say that it is in the last quarter of the region”

This week the mid-year meeting of the Inter American Press Association (IAPA)an event that serves to assess the situation of the freedom of expression and press in the region every six months.

This year’s meeting was marked by countless reports of aggression, imprisonment and exile suffered by journalists in different Latin American countries, in addition to the attacks and the alarming number of 15 murders in the region.

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Undoubtedly, countries like Cuba, Nicaragua, Mexico or Venezuela monopolized much of the debate, but the situation in Peru also showed a marked worsening, mainly due to attacks from the Executive, restrictions on access to information and judicial harassment against journalists, to name a few.

Trade talked about it with Rodrigo Salazar Zimmermann, executive director of the Peruvian Press Council (CPP).

—How can we describe the situation of freedom of expression and the press in Peru during this last semester?

We as CPP issue a report on freedom of expression in Peru every semester to the IAPA. If I can summarize it in one sentence, it would be that the situation for journalists and citizens to get information is the worst in Peru since the fall of Alberto Fujimori. 22 years ago we did not have such a serious problem as we do now with Pedro Castillo as president.

—What are the main threats to the press? The judicial persecution?

I would say no. Usually that was the main problem, but now it goes much further. Since Pedro Castillo entered the presidency, the Executive has become the main front of aggression. Congress and the Judiciary have moved to a second level. On the other hand we have the Prosecutor’s Office, which was always an independent entity but now we have investigations against journalists like Pedro Salinas or Paola Ugaz. What is inexplicable is that they have begun to investigate Nobel Prize winner Mario Vargas Llosa for sedition because he reinforced the theory of fraud. Although we know that there was no fraud, one is free to say what he wants.

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—What situation does this put us in at the regional level?

In the last room. We are definitely not Nicaragua, Cuba or Venezuela, and we are not on the way to that either, but we are not Colombia or Chile either. Peru had always been considered an example of freedom of expression, but this week several countries almost gave us their condolences for being in this position: with a government that attacks every day, that persecutes us, where they call us communists or right-wingers when the The only job we do is inform.

—Is it a phenomenon similar to the polarization that was created in the United States after the elections between Trump and Clinton? Does expressing an opinion today in Peru make you a communist or a rightist?

I would say that the problem in the United States is more citizen, that at a certain level we also have it in Peru. There you can’t say many things because you have groups that cancel you on Twitter, close your networks or fire you from work. In “The New York Times” journalists have been fired because they used words that a leftist group did not like. In Peru you also have it, you have on the right with groups like La Resistencia or Los Patriotas that boycott the presentation of a book by former president Francisco Sagasti. Or that he goes to Jaime Chincha’s house to yell at him. I would say that we are worse off than Donald Trump’s USA, he had a recalcitrant speech against journalists but here we have a president who has a protection group. His security team has hit a journalist with the president himself and he has done nothing. On the other hand, we have demonstrators from Peru Libre who went to beat up journalists when he presented the new cabinet to Congress. Trump had aggressive rhetoric but in this government we see physical attacks.

– Is the silence of the president and other authorities towards the press for so many months considered a type of aggression or rejection of freedom of expression?

I would say no, but I do see it as a lack of transparency. In the State there are very clear transparency laws that oblige public servants to make their actions transparent. Pedro Castillo entered the Palace on July 28, 2021 and did not give interviews until January of this year, it is 5 or 6 months in which he did not give any interviews. We met with him in September and October of last year to urge him to talk to the media, but we see that it is not something that he considers important.

—Broadening our gaze to the region, we have seen that the alarms are going off not only in Venezuela and Nicaragua but also in Chile in full Constituent Assembly.

Throughout the region there is a degradation of freedom of expression. I am sure that if Peru had a Constituent Assembly there would also be such attempts. But without a doubt the most serious example of all is that of Nicaragua. A few months ago I spoke with a journalist and friend of mine, Juan Lorenzo Holmann, one of the owners of the newspaper “La Prensa”, and two weeks later they kidnapped him, took him to a cell and now he has been sentenced to 9 years in prison for being journalist. It is as if the State kidnaps you tomorrow and puts you in jail for a decade just for reporting. We are not at that level in Peru but it reflects how we are as a region.

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—El Salvador is also worrying in Central America, especially because of the figure of Nayib Bukele.

He’s a ‘tyrant’, I don’t know if the diminutive fits. It has a discourse contrary to the media. But it is that everyone has it, the problem is when the speech becomes law. In Peru we have a balance between the Executive and the Legislative, which makes it difficult for us to reach that level.

—What can we say about Mexico, the country with the worst figures for murders of journalists?

In Mexico they kill a journalist a month, that’s the statistic. Unlike Peru, they don’t throw stones at you or insult you, they kill you. But remember that here there are three journalists murdered more than 30 years ago and that no trial has been carried out. Returning to Mexico, AMLO has also had clashes with the press. I would tell you that in Latin America the only presidents who have not had these attitudes are Gabriel Boric, who has just started in Chile; Guillermo Lasso in Ecuador and Iván Duque in Colombia.

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—Carlos Loret de Mola told us in an interview that the situation of a journalist from the capital, with a large media outlet behind him, was very different from that of one from the interior. What is the situation of journalists in the other provinces of Peru?

I give you an example. Yesterday they told me about a journalist in Amazonas who was sentenced for defamation, but they didn’t give him the full sentence. They told him, for example, you are sentenced to a year and a half in suspended prison and he comes back on Friday so that we can read you the rest of the sentence. This demonstrates the lack of a correct judicial process in the provinces. We also have the case of Cristopher Acosta, where the judge wanted to do the job of an editor by telling him which citations he could use and which he couldn’t. In Lima these things have visibility but in other provinces things are brutal.

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—What actions do you recommend to improve this situation?

It is a very difficult question. From the Executive, these types of speeches that lead to violence must be stopped, on the other hand, urge international bodies such as the IACHR to come and see what is happening. In fact, we have invited them, we just wait for them to confirm the date.

Source: Elcomercio

Deshawn