The International Press Institute (IPI) today condemned the recent convictions of three Peruvian journalists on defamation charges, and called on the Peruvian government to abolish libel as a criminal offence.

On June 5, a judge in Lima sentenced Juan Carlos Tafur, editor of Diario 16, and journalist Roberto More Chávez to two-year suspended prison senteces and ordered each to pay damages in the amount of 60,000 soles ($22,000) to a former interior minister, Antonio Ketín Vidal Herrera.

Vidal had brought charges against the pair after Diario 16 published an article in January 2011 linking him to the Sánchez Paredes family, which has been under investigation for alleged drug trafficking and money laundering. A former general, Vidal is well-known in Peru for spearheading the capture of Shining Path leader Abimael Guzmán Reynoso in 1992.

The article, written by More, stated that the allegations were based upon a confidencial police document that had been sent to the Interior Ministry in March 2010. More indicated in the story that Diario 16 attempted to contact Vidal to hear his side of the story, but that this “was not possible”.

Perú 21 quoted Tafur as saying after the verdict: “This [the decision] seems to me falsely inflated, and my lawyer believes that there are a series of incongruencies that can be easily refuted at a higher level [of the judicial process].” The pair’s lawyer emphasised that the article was derived from the police document and was not part of a “systematic campaign of defamation and discredit”, as Vidal had insisted.

The Institute for Press and Society (IPYS) reported that the judge in the case, José Rolando Chávez, had been under investigation for alleged irregularities in the processing of the lawsuit by the Research and Anti-Corruption Unit of the country’s judiciary bureau, which recommended fining Chávez 10 percent of his salary just days before the verdict was announced. Tafur and More’s lawyer also reported irregularities in the trial, including the fact that the judge refused to hear the defence’s oral declarations, news reports said.

Earlier, on May 24, a judge in Huaylas province convicted journalist Alejandro Villanueva Aldave of defaming Félix Alberto Pohl Luna, a public oficial of the city of Huaylas, in a radio broadcast.

According to Peru’s National Journalist Association (ANP, according to its Spanish acronym), the judge suspended Villanueva Aldave’s potential prison sentence, but ordered the journalist to follow certain “rules of conduct” for the following 15 days, including “rectifiying” what the court viewed as libellous action. Villanueva Aldave was also ordered to pay 3,000 soles as reparation to Pohl Luna.

Pohl Luna took legal action against Villanueva Aldave after the journalist, during his program “The News Suitcase” on Sideral radio station, raised questions about apparent alleged irregularities in Pohl Luna’s official conduct and recent political party switch, the ANP reported.

IPI Deputy Director Anthony Mills said: “IPI is concerned at the sentences against Juan Carlos Tafur, Roberto Moore, and Alejandro Villanueva Aldave, and urges appeals courts to overturn them. Ignoring a global trend toward the decriminalisation of defamation, governments and courts in Latin America continue to use outdated laws to punish investigative journalism.”

Mills continued: “These rulings can only lead to a weakening of democracy. Where journalists are forced to keep silent for fear of prosecution, information available in the public domain becomes limited and one-sided. We strongly urge the Peruvian government to consider the repeal of its criminal libel laws.”

IPI is a leading voice in the campaign against criminalised defamation. IPI delegates, including Executive Director Alison Bethel McKenzie, are currently on a mission to Barbados, Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, and Trinidad and Tobago, to advócate for the abolishment of criminal libel in the Caribbean region.

Peru has been a hotbed of defamation cases over the past year. Last July, Hans Francisco Andrade Chávez, the former host for a local afíliate of América TV was sentenced to two years in prison and fined approximately $1,500 on charges of defaming a public oficial in Chepén, northeastern Peru. Earlier this year, Peru’s Supreme Court voided the three-year prison sentence for defamation of journalist Teobaldo Meléndez Fachín, who had accused a local mayor in Alto Amazonas of bank fraud, news reports said.