BOLIVIA: Bolivian journalists step up protests against controversial law which they say will muzzle the media

Record ID: 789153

  • Title: BOLIVIA: Bolivian journalists step up protests against controversial law which they say will muzzle the media
  • Date: 8th October 2010
  • Summary: LA PRENSA NEWSPAPER WITH HEADLINE SAYING 'WITHOUT FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION, THERE'S NO DEMOCRACY' VARIOUS OF SIGN AT NEWSPAPER OFFICE, NEWSPAPER STAND AND BLANK FRONT PAGES OF NEWSPAPERS WITH 'WITHOUT FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION, THERE'S NO DEMOCRACY'
  • Embargoed: 23rd October 2010 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: Communications,Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA2WBCD62GNOEBVFCNNW26ILK59
  • Story Text: Journalists protested and held hunger strikes across Bolivia on Thursday (October 7) in opposition to a proposed anti-racism law that they believe would infringe on their freedom of speech.
    The law - which is awaiting approval from the Senate today - would allow authorities to close down news outlets and jail journalists if they are deemed to publish racist content.
    The proposed law has touched off protests throughout the country, but indigenous President Evo Morales has stuck behind it, maintaining it won't infringe on freedom of speech.
    "The indigenous peasant movement was the biggest target of racism. If this was Bolivian history, it was thanks to the permanent fight that is changing the Constitution and that's why the time has come to end racism. They say that, 'Without freedom of expression, there's no democracy.' I want to tell you that freedom of expression is completely guaranteed but we cannot practice racism or discrimination under that pretext," Morales told journalists.
    Newspapers throughout the country have demonstrated their solidarity by publishing front pages marked only with one sentence: 'There's no democracy without freedom of expression."
    Morales, himself an Aymara Indian, took over as president of Bolivia in 2005 with the mission to 'refound' the country in the name of the poor, indigenous majority. He easily won reelection last year.
    However, he has clashed with the old power structure, mostly people of European descent in the eastern economic powerhouse of Santa Cruz, a conflict that has at turns divided the country along race lines.
    The most controversial article of the bill, Article 16, can level economic sanctions and even close down media outlets if they publish comments perceived to be racist.
    Indigenous supporters of Morales gathered outside the National Assembly as the legislatures debated the bill.
    The law was passed through a Senate committee on Tuesday by a group headed by Eugenio Rojas, a staunch Morales supporter and part of his Movement Toward Socialism Party (MAS).
    "Article 16 has been approved without modification," Rojas said earlier in the week.
    Opposition senators vocally protested the committee's decision and journalists redoubled their protests.
    At the Bolivian Journalists Confederation, members of the media held hunger strikes to draw attention to the contentious bill.
    Pablo Zenteno Poma, the secretary of the journalist group, said the measure demonstrates Morales' ignorance of some of the particulars of laws applying to the press.
    "We're very worried. It affects the freedom of expression in our country. We're practically killing it with this law and it obviously also affects other interests of ours like the right to work and, in Article 23, respect for our Publishing Law. We must denounce that because there's a lack of knowledge about it. The president (Evo Morales) himself admitted this morning that he doesn't know the Publishing Law and that's where the sanctions against racism and discrimination are stipulated," he said.
    Journalists fear Morales will use the law to shut down voices that are critical of his government.
    Recently, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Argentine President Cristina Fernandez have also been accused of trying to control the media to silence dissenting voices.
    Franklin Pareja, the director of the political science department at the University of San Andres, said the measure will also open up a subjective issue on what is qualified as 'racism'.
    "Article 16 talks about how the media will be sanctioned if it allows the expression of racist ideas. What is a racist idea? Who defines what a racist idea is? This could have an anthropological, sociological or judicial focus. Who will be the god of Olympus who will determine what a racist idea is? What is racist to one person could be not racist to another so that it's absolutely pernicious and perverse to sanction ideas. What can be sanctioned are actions, never ideas," he said.
    But it's not just Bolivia's traditional elite who are against the law. Marco Aurelio Castillo Quispe, the head of the La Paz Rural Confederation, said it could also affect the freedom of speech of peasant farmers as well.
    "To us, that law is against our rights. They want to shut us up. They want to make us peasants submissive and handle us like sheep; they want to manipulate us like a flock of sheep. That's never going to happen because we've fought against that. We've never wanted submission. We've asked to live freely. If there are a few journalists who've made racist comments, why weren't they put in jail?" he said.
    In Santa Cruz, the heart of Morales' opposition, people marched and held hunger strikes against the law. Journalists showed a petition with thousands of signatures in favor of free speech.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2011. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
  • Usage Terms/Restrictions: Video restrictions: parts of this video may require additional clearances. Please see ‘Business Notes’ for more information.
Register