Some of Peru’s top government officials, including President Ollanta Humala, are former army officers who spent the 1980s fighting Maoist Shining Path guerrillas. Both sides committed massive human rights abuses, but now one particularly brutal episode is coming back to haunt the Humala administration.
Bogotá, April 24, 2014–The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns Tuesday’s attack on the home of Peruvian journalist Yofré López Sifuentes and calls on authorities to conduct a thorough investigation and hold the perpetrators to account. Lopez was unhurt after a bomb exploded, but his parents were injured, according to news reports.
Peruvian journalist César Quino Escudero was sentenced on March 21, 2014, to a six-month suspended prison sentence for defaming the governor of the northeastern state of Ancash, according to news reports. Quino was also fined US$8,400 in damages and sentenced to 120 days of community service.
The climate of press freedom in Peru remained much the same as 2012, with reporters being targeted with violence and defamation suits for reporting on local corruption. While no journalists were imprisoned, two were convicted on criminal defamation charges and received suspended prison sentences. A bill that eliminated jail terms for defamation has remained stalled…
Two murdered journalists for the Africa service of Radio France Internationale, Ghislaine Dupont, 51, and Claude Verlon, 58, might have had a chance. They were abducted on November 2 in Kidal in northern Mali, but the vehicle their captors were driving suddenly broke down, according to news reports.
Two Peruvian journalists in the central Peruvian city of Ayacucho who had reported on alleged government corruption were convicted of criminal defamation, fined, and handed suspended jail sentences in two separate cases on October 21, 2013, according to news reports.
Peruvian journalist Humberto Espinoza Maguiña was convicted twice in two consecutive days in September 2013 on charges of defaming the governor of the northeastern state of Ancash, according to news reports. He received a two-year suspended prison sentence and was fined US$2,000 in damages.
Bogotá, July 9, 2013–Peruvian authorities should immediately investigate a bomb attack on the offices of Radio Tropicana in the town of Satipo on July 4, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. No one was hurt, but the station’s offices were badly damaged, the station’s manager told CPJ.