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.
Alcides Peñaranda Oropeza, editor of the Peruvian daily and magazine Integración, was sentenced on May 21 in the city of Huaraz to a two-year suspended prison sentence and 10,000 soles (US$$3,662) in damages on charges of criminally defaming Cesar Álvarez Aguilar, governor of the northern Ancash region, according to news reports.
Peruvian journalist Jorge Alberto Moncada Mino was attacked by unidentified assailants in the city of Chiclayo in the northern department of Lambayeque on May 24, according to news reports. Moncada, who reports for the daily El Ciclón de Chiclayo and Radio Caliente, was entering a store near his home to buy bread when two men…
Dear OAS Ministers of Foreign Affairs: Ahead of the assembly of the Organization of American States on Friday, the Committee to Protect Journalists urges you to oppose any attempts to debilitate the regional human rights system. The failure of member states to preserve the autonomy and independence of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and its special rapporteur on freedom of expression would make citizens throughout the hemisphere more vulnerable to human rights violations and represent a blow to democracy in the Americas.