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LivinginPeru.com
Isabel Guerra

The bill recently introduced in Peru's Congress  (to ammend the law regarding the Right to a Rectification for People Affected by Insulting or Inexact Information in the Mass Media) would be a threat to the freedom of press, especially for small and independent media.

This was the opinion expressed by the congressman Victor Andres Garcia Belaunde, as well as by many journalists and other professionals currently working in the mass media and Internet.

The congressman thinks that “this is a way to threaten the owners of the companies running the media, a subtle way to tell them 'don't let John Doe say this because you may end up having civil responsibility.”

The bill, which was introduced by the ruling party (APRA) congresswoman Mercedes Cabanillas, reduces to 3 days the time to print or run a rectification, and modifies the Article 132 of the Penal Code by including web pages and blogs as possible defamation agents.

This project (number 2971/2008-CR) is currently in the Commission of Constitution agenda, and is scheduled to be discussed by the Congress next week.

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