The director of El Comercio and vice president of the Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information of the Inter-American Press Association (SIP), Fernando Berckemeyer, presented on Saturday April 14 before the assembly of that organization, convened for its mid-year meeting in Medellin, the report of threats to freedom of expression in Peru in the last semester.
He pointed out three major types of threats during this period: Policies that, according to Berckemeyer limit the press, such as the Mulder Law that prohibits the State’s advertisement in private media; Mafias that have dominated a good part of the regional and municipal politics and that have turned the exercise of journalism into a practice of special risk in growing areas of Peru; And institutional ones that arise from the “poor state in Peru of the institutions responsible for enforcing the rights enshrined in the law”.
“The Mulder Law, which aims to prohibit state advertising in private media, was ‘a clear reprisal’ from the majority forces in Congress, in a context in which the media has been multiplying their criticism against them.”, said the director of El Comercio.
Another example of a threat to the press in Peru, according to Berckemeyer is the case of the fire caused to the vehicle of Juan Ferdinand Berríos Jiménez, journalist of Radio Tahuamanu, after he made public denunciations against Julián Toledo Huamán, mayor of the district of Iberia, in the province of Tahuamanu, in Madre de Dios.
Finally, the director of El Comercio participated in a panel on “fake news” with Javier Darío Restrepo and Jaime Abelló, director of the Foundation for New Ibero-American Journalism, which he created together with Gabriel García Márquez.
(Source)
(Cover Photo Flickr)
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