MIAMI, Florida (Dec. 21)-The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) today wrote to Nicaraguan President Arnoldo Alemán urging him to veto a law passed recently by the Legislative Assembly making it mandatory for journalists to belong to a Colegio, or guild. The hemisphere free-press organization said such a step is a serious infringement of the right to freedom of expression.
The following is the full text of the letter sent to Alemán, signed jointly by IAPA President Danilo Arbilla, editor of the Montevideo, Uruguay, news weekly Búsqueda, and the chairman of the associations Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information, Rafael Molina, of the magazine Ahora, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic:
Mr. President:
It is with deep concern that we have learned of the approval on December
13 of the Law on the Nicaraguan Journalists Colegio, a violation of Principle
8 of the Declaration of Chapultepec, of which Nicaragua has been a signatory
since 1994 and which states that membership of journalists in guilds and
professional and trade associations must be strictly voluntary and not obligatory
as required under the new law.
Mr. President, we ask you to look into the extent of the repercussions for
prominent Nicaraguan journalists and news media that will be produced by
this law, which we regard as violating the most elementary rights of freedom
of expression and restricting the very practice of journalism. This is a
clear step backwards in the struggle of the Nicaraguan people over so many
years to consolidate democracy.
Article 6 of the law establishes that only those who are "registered
in the registry of professionals to be maintained by the Colegio" shall
be able to work as journalists, while Article 9 requires news media "to
have a journalist accredited by the Colegio in a senior editorial position,
such as executive editor, editor or managing editor," thus imposing
administrative rules on the press. Under terms of the laws Articles 6 and
4 only registered journalists shall be allowed to practice their profession
and to become registered a university degree or years of accredited experience
will be required. The law also provides for fines for mews media that hire
a journalist who is not registered with the Journalists Colegio, which is
an unconstitutional interference in the private activity of lawful institutions.
All these new legal requirements amount to restrictions of the most elementary
human right, that of being able to express oneself freely. Making it obligatory
for journalists to be registered with the Journalists Colegio means curtailing
the freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds,
as well as restricting the right of the Nicaraguan people to receive information
unfettered.
We concur with what was stated by the Inter-American Human Rights Court
in 1985, when in its Advisory Opinion No. 5 on Costa Rica it concluded that
the licensing of journalists was incompatible with freedom of expression
as enshrined in Article 13 of the 1969 American Convention on Human Rights.
On that occasion, the Court declared that "freedom of expression is
a fundamental right of every human being by the mere fact of being so, whose
exercise may not be restricted nor made dependent upon compliance with prior
requirements of any nature that he cannot or does not wish to comply with."
Following the Advisory Opinion, the Costa Rican Supreme Court declared as
unconstitutional the law that had established obligatory licensing of journalists
in that country in 1995. Some years earlier in the Dominican Republic, that
countrys Supreme Court overturned the law there requiring obligatory membership
of journalists in a colegio.
As may be seen from the above, the countries of Latin America have begun
to understand that the free flow of ideas and news must not be restricted
by legal requirements of obligatory guild membership or of a mandatory university
degree in order to work as a journalist, even though they may be with the
noble aim of raising the level of the profession of journalism.
The IAPA has always been a defender of high standards for the profession
of journalism, but it cannot share the position of curtailing the freedom
to report of those who want to do so from time to time or those who make
it their profession for failing to comply with the requirement of a university
degree or a specified number of years experience. It is clear that those
who are directly harmed are all of society, because it is their fundamental
right to information that is unfettered and without qualification of any
kind that is curtailed.
Mr. President, the passage of this law does not only transgress the commitments
made with the signing of the Declaration of Chapultepec by the Nicaraguan
government in 1994, but also violates the freedom of expression enshrined
in Article 13 of the Pact of San José, ratified as law by the State
of Nicaragua in 1979.
We believe that you are able to halt this law by exercising your constitutional
power of veto in not signing it. We are aware of your ongoing commitment
to promote human rights and we trust in your decided support to the development
and consolidation of democracy in Nicaragua.
FUENTE: nota.texto7
