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Proyecto Visión 21

We will be left with nothing if we don’t protect our freedom of speech

Last week, I attended the 69th General Assembly of the Inter-American Press Association (IAPA). More than 300 journalists and editors from the American continent gathered in Denver to analyze several topics impacting the present and future of journalism. I was surprised to learn about the attacks on freedom of speech. I didn’t know the level of attacks was so high.

I am not talking about restrictions to freedom of speech in some countries usually associated with those restrictions, such as Cuba or Venezuela. I am taking about restrictions to freedom of speech in the United States and in Canada, where the use of sophisticated technology and of national security concerns restricts the access or publication of information and promotes self-censorship.

In fact, Claudio Portillo, a journalist from Uruguay and president of IAPA’s Commission on Freedom of the Press and Information, said that this has been “the worst semester in five years” for journalism in the Americas, because 14 reporters were killed during the past six months.

In addition, 17 cases of murders of journalists in Mexico, Colombia, and other countries will never be investigated because the time to investigate those cases is about to expire. Therefore, the killers and those who ordered the killers will never be brought to justice.

During the IAPA conference, representatives from different countries (including Cuba only for the second time) presented reports about the freedom of the press and freedom of speech in their countries. There were all kind of examples of suppression of the freedom of speech, including government officials buying media outlets using straw men or family members and illegal economic sanctions for media outlets unable to censor their own stories.

According to Portillo, those attacks to freedom of speech in several Latin American countries are part of the plan “to demolish democracies” with the goal of replacing them with “messianic leaders who want to remain in power for ever.”

“We thought the arrival of democracy will bring automatic transparency. We are far away from that ideal”, Portillo said.

In the case of the United States, the case is complicated due to new restrictions to the access to some information if the federal government believes the publication of said information could be a threat to the national security of the country.

In addition, recent revelations (thanks to documents leaked to the press) about how the American government spies on the phone and electronic communications of American and foreign citizens is an indication, according to Portillo, of “clear intention to obstruct in a legal way the access to information”.

Other case analyzed was the recently approved Communications Law in Ecuador, popularly known as the “gag order law,” because it restricts the activities of independent reporters. In fact, the government now decides who can be a reporter and who can be owner of media organizations.

Without freedom of expression, human beings are dehumanized and become puppets. As one of the reporters suggested, freedom of speech and of the press needs to be watered every day.

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