The chairman of the IAPA’s Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information, Rafael Molina, expressed the organization’s pleasure at the preliminary approval of the legislative bill on the right to public information and habeas data passed in the Uruguayan lower house of Congress on October 8. It would provide for free access by citizens to all government documents and to receive and distribute such information.
“We are pleased to see the progress made in the area of freedom of expression represented by this measure providing for government transparency in a democratic society. We trust that the initiative is upheld in the Uruguayan Senate and that the appropriate enabling legislation is drawn up so that the public’s right to information may be complied with in an effective manner,” Molina said.
Regarding Nicaragua, Molina, editor of the Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, news weekly Ahora, said that the bill before the Central American country’s Legislative Assembly seeking to increase penalties for the offense of the insult law provision contained in the Penal Code “puts at risk the right of citizens to freely express their views on the conduct of government officials and amounts to a dangerous curtailment of freedom of expression.”
The Nicaraguan bill would increase the penalty for offending government agencies or the president to five years of imprisonment. Article 348 of the Penal Code currently provides for imprisonment of six months to four years.
Insult laws have been repealed in Argentina, Costa Rica and Paraguay.
Molina quoted the IAPA-sponsored Declaration of a Chapultepec, a document drafted in 1994 setting out 10 principles for free speech and press freedom, saying that “no news medium nor journalist may be punished for publishing the truth or criticizing or denouncing the government.”
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