Journalist who denounced censorship in RTVC charged with charges

10/20/2020 Colombia, Technology



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The Attorney General’s Office announced this Monday that it will charge journalist Diana Díaz for the crime of using a matter subjected to secrecy or secrecy, assuring that “he would have incurred a criminal offense related to violation of the confidentiality clause signed as a servant of the State“.

Based on an audio of almost 14 minutes, recorded by Díaz on December 6, 2018, Flip denounced in January 2019 that the manager of the National Radio Television of Colombia (RTVC), Juan Pablo Bieri, ordered to censor the program “ Creole cigars ” for the opinions of its presenter, Santiago Rivas on a bill to modernize the Ministry of Information Technology and Communications (MinTIC), promoted by the Government.

In the audio it is heard that Bieri ordered to withdraw the broadcast of the program and alter the launch plans of the fifth season of the same, which is why he subsequently resigned from his position. However, he did so by ensuring that the recording, which he described as “illegal,” violated his right to privacy, which is why he reported Díaz to the Prosecutor’s Office.

“If you do ‘Los pure criollos’ again, you do it with someone else. There is no chance that he will do it again. Rather, there is no possibility that in this management Santiago will work with this company again. In no co-production and production. There’s no chance, ”Bieri was heard saying at a meeting..

Flip accuses the Prosecutor’s Office to create an environment of self-censorship

La Flip questioned the actions of the Attorney General’s Office through a letter addressed to the attorney general, Francisco Barbosa. There, the Foundation expressed its concern regarding “the environment of fear and self-censorship that may generate the initiation or progress of investigations”Against journalists who use their freedom of expression to report on matters of public interest.

Likewise, Flip warned that “it is extremely serious that in the investigation” against Díaz “uses illegitimate, unnecessary, unjustified and disproportionate mechanisms“, Qualifying the criminal process as” nonsense in itself. “

“From the beginning, it should have been archived because confidential information was not disclosed; they acted in good faith to disclose irregularities; and it was a legitimate exercise of freedom of expression on an irregularity that is not minor, because the prohibition of censorship is a central guarantee for democracy, ”the foundation stressed.

The letter also contained a complaint because “on October 8, the Prosecutor’s Office required Flip to inform a date for conducting a judicial inspection of its facilities as well as’ the documents to control the entry and exit of visitors, during the period between from December 6, 2018 to January 23, 2019, in order to establish the income of Diana Marcela Díaz ‘“.

Faced with such request, the Flip stated that there is no precedent “where so flagrantly [que] a State institution “asked them” to violate the reservation of the source and provide information ”entrusted to them by their benefactors, although the Prosecutor’s Office clarified that the diligence was not carried out“ because there was no need ”.

Outrage and rejection of the media and journalists

Several media and journalists also spoke out on Monday about what happened. El Espectador dedicated an emphatic editorial to the issue in which it describes as “shameful” that Juan Pablo Bieri was hired again by President Iván Duque after the scandal. “Now, in a direct attack on freedom of the press with hints of authoritarianism, the Prosecutor’s Office intends to bring to trial the journalist who, it suspects, may have revealed the evidence of the presidential adviser’s bad practices. The country upside down! ”, Reproaches that newspaper. “Violators of freedom of expression end up rewarded and those who set off the alarms are persecuted by the investigating body“.

“Everything related to this case goes from shame to shame, both for the Government of Iván Duque and for the Prosecutor’s Office of his chosen one, Francisco Barbosa,” says that newspaper.

Journalists Yolanda Ruiz and Félix de Bedout agreed to condemn the case as a “serious threat to freedom of the press and a message of intimidation for public officials who want to denounce corruption in State entities ”.

Santiago Rivas himself limited himself to replicating several of the reactions on his Twitter account and in his program Puntos Capitales, he tried to stay on the sidelines and chose to ask questions about the lawyer from the University of Los Andes Ana Bejarano:

The Karisma Foundation and José Miguel Vivanco, director of Human Rights Watch for the Americas, recalled that, according to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), “whistleblowers must be protected against legal, administrative or labor sanctions“:



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