By The Inter-American Press Association
Journalists, civic leaders, academics and university students in a unanimous voice called for greater freedom of speech and the press to strengthen democracy during a forum organized last week by the Inter-American Press Association (IAPA) in Managua, Nicaragua.
The forum, “Freedom of Expression, Reality, Obstacles and Solutions,” held on March 4, brought together more than 300 university journalism and law students from Managua and León. The University of Commercial Sciences (UCC) and the Violeta Barrios Chamorro Foundation also collaborated.
Taking place in an election year in which the government of President Daniel Ortega continues to pressure the media and journalists through political and economic channels, Francisco Chamorro, director of El Nuevo Diario and the Nicaraguan and regional vice president of IAPA’s Committee for Freedom of the Press and Information, warned that government officials intend to create a climate of self-censorship to further their own aspirations.
Jaime Chamorro, editor of La Prensa, another opposition newspaper in the country, said the most obvious censorship is the disappearance of local television and radio newscasts, many of which have been bought and are being run by relatives of President Ortega.
In the most anticipated presentation, a group of journalism and UCC law students related their experiences, highlighting the need to live in a free and just society, which also means “demanding greater moral commitment from the media in order to have the responsible distribution of information.”
Argentine lawyer, Adrian Ventura, of La Nación newspaper in Buenos Aires, acted as the “Ambassador” of the IAPA’s Chapultepec Project, urging young people to seek new freedoms to be able to “live in full democracy,” and journalists to use the Inter-American Human Rights System when complaints are not taken up by the local courts.
During the opening ceremony, UCC Provost Gilberto Bergman defended the use and teaching of new technologies in the struggle for press freedom.
Cristiana Chamorro celebrated the 85th anniversary of La Prensa by speaking about the importance of journalists who reported on abuses committed by governments of different ideologies throughout that period.
For his part, IAPA Executive Director Julio Múñoz highlighted the significance of the Declaration of Chapultepec, which demonstrates the close relationship between press freedom and democracy, and the obligations of officials to protect free expression.
Fabricio Altamirano, CEO of El Diario de Hoy in El Salvador and a member of the IAPA Executive Committee, concluded the event by stressing the responsibility of each future leader to safeguard the freedoms and diversity and plurality of opinions, as individual rights and democratic duties.
Finally, Ricardo Trotti, director of Press Freedom, gave details about the assassination of Nicaraguan journalists Carlos Guadamuz and María José Bravo in 2004 – murders that have not been fully clarified. IAPA demands that the government take steps to prosecute these crimes and guarantee that they not go unpunished.
IAPA is a nonprofit organization dedicated to defending and promoting press freedom and freedom of expression in the Americas. It is comprised of more than 1,300 publications in the Western Hemisphere and is based in Miami, Florida, U.S. For more information, see www.sipiapa.org.
