“Every individual has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; “This right includes the right not to be disturbed because of one’s opinions, to seek and receive information and opinions, and to disseminate them, regardless of frontiers, through any means of expression,” states Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Rights. Humans.
World Press Freedom Day is celebrated on May 3 by order of the United Nations General Assembly. This date represents a milestone to put the state of this right under the magnifying glass and promote initiatives in its defense.
The UN has pointed out that “online and ‘real-life’ (print) media serve as sentinels and warning systems for the full range of potential human rights violations.” In that context, Journalists are victims of threats, violence and even murders.
In 2024, the Inter American Press Association (SIP) promotes the We Believe in Journalism campaign, to promote an “honest, transparent and quality” press. This initiative arose “in the face of the significant challenges that information and communication professionals face in the midst of the violence of organized crime, growing authoritarianism, persecution and exile.”
The risks and violence against journalists in America persist, according to the Chapultepec Index of Freedom of Expression and Press presented by the IAPA in November 2023.
This report puts the magnifying glass on 22 countries in the Americas and recorded that CubaVenezuela and Nicaragua are in the “without freedom of expression” status.
For their part, Honduras, El Salvador, Bolivia and Guatemala also appear on the list of countries with high restrictions on press freedom.
In this context, the president of the Commission of Freedom of the press of Information of the IAPA, Carlos Hugo Jornet, stressed that “it is increasingly difficult to talk about full democracies and the impact on the exercise of journalism is direct.”
Between August 2022 and August 2023, data was documented indicating that Colombia appears in the category of “restriction of freedom of expression” with 52.3 points, followed by Paraguay (51.63), Argentina (51.34), Peru (50.69), Brazil (48.41) and Mexico (41.82).
Safety and respect
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) classifies press freedom and in its evaluation indicates that countries with less than 40 points are going through a very serious situation. In 2023, RFF pointed out that Cuba It is the country in Latin America with the least exercise of this freedom, followed by Honduras, Venezuela and Nicaragua.
This characterization weighs different aspects: Performance in terms of pluralism, the independence of the media, the security and respect for the freedom of journalists.
In May 2023, the new Social Communication Law in Cuba was condemned by various international organizations for violating freedom of expression and the right to communication.
Article 18 of the law establishes that social media are “socialist property of the entire people or of political, mass and social organizations, and cannot be the object of any other type of ownership.”
“This law comes to legislatively control the public space that escapes them and now you have a legal instrument at hand, one more instrument than those that have been created in the last five years to repress freedom of expression that goes against the interests of the Communist Party,” said Cuban journalist Alejandro Ulloa, who is in exile in Spain.
The Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) warned that the Social Communication Law in Cuba contravenes international human rights standards and intensifies censorship.
In 2023, Reporters Without Borders ranked Mexico as the country with the highest number of missing journalists in the world: 31 of a total of 84 cases since 1995. Mexico was also the second most dangerous country for journalism in 2023, after Palestine. Throughout the year, four communicators were murdered.
Mute
Luisa Torrealba, member of the Communication Research Institute of the Central University of Venezuela (UCV), points out that the presence of governments that have non-democratic actions by silencing, persecuting and closing media is prevailing.
“This occurs, for example, in the case of Nicaragua, or in Cuba, but also in the action of groups that act outside the law, parastatal groups, such as the case of Mexico with groups linked to drug trafficking that represent a risk to life. of those who deal with these types of topics. In Colombia there are also threats,” he says.
He points out that “in Venezuela there is an implicit government policy aimed at silencing from different sides. One of these flanks occurs through regulatory means, through legal means. The government (regime) seeks to draft laws or draft laws with which they are intimidated and that can be cause for arbitrary detention as has been seen in recent months. This has even been seen in the case of people who are detained or threatened for posting a complaint about a public service in a WhatsApp status.”
Torrealba indicates that another censorship mechanism in Venezuela is executed through the radio system. “There is a record of open communication media that stopped reporting and mentioning certain topics considered critical for the management of Nicolás Maduro, they tell the interviewees which topics they cannot talk about because it represents a risk for the continuity of the concession”.
Another clear pattern of persecution of freedoms occurs with the closure of radio stations through administrative procedures carried out by the National Telecommunications Commission (Conatel).
In January 2024, the NGO Espacio Público noted that, in the last 20 years, 408 media outlets have closed in Venezuela, with the greatest impact on radio stations. This has occurred “in a context in which citizens need to be informed, in the midst of a complex humanitarian emergency, deep inequality and a wave of mass migration.”
in exile
The UN Regional Office for Central America and the Caribbean documents that threats and violent acts are part of the daily lives of journalists. This ranges from media outlets that have been closed or forced to move their operations abroad to journalists who have resorted to exile, criminally investigated or stripped of their nationality.
“The fear of being questioned should not be a reason to deprive the press of its right to exercise its function in a free and safe manner,” said Alberto Brunori, UN Human Rights Representative in the Office for Central America and the Caribbean. .
For its part, the Nicaraguan Human Rights Collective organization denounced, in April 2024, that 253 journalists have left their country due to the persecution of the Daniel Ortega regime.
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Source: United Nations / IAPA / UN / Reporter Without Borders (RSF)
