A Venezuelan columnist has been fined and imprisoned after writing an article accusing a local mayor of nepotism, following a court hearing on Friday, 11 June.
Francisco “Pancho” Perez, a columnist with Venezuelan daily El Carabobeño, was fined the equivalent of 16,000 EUR, and sentenced to three years and nine months in prison. The court in Valencia, the state capital of Carabobo, also banned him from performing any professional and political activities for two years, according to Ewald Scharfenberg, Director of the Venezuelan branch of the Instituto Prensa y Sociedad, a Latin-American freedom of expression group.
Perez, who had worked for the Valencia-based newspaper for over forty years, was charged with “slander and offence to a civil servant” following his article about alleged acts of nepotism involving Edgardo Parra, the mayor of the economic hub city, the third largest in Venezuela.
Following the article in Perez’s “En Secreto” column on 30 March 2009, Mayor Parra filed a complaint claiming that the article was “offensive to public officials and libel against a person responsible for public service.” Perez’s column accused the mayor of appointing his sister, his sister-in-law and his wife as senior officials in the municipal administration. In an interview with beleaguered independent TV station Globovision, Perez defended his column, claiming the information was already public knowledge.
Perez’s column has been published weekly on Mondays for the past 30 years, featuring his opinion on events in Carabobo state.
Speaking to IPI on Friday, Scharfenberg, of the Instituto Prensa y Sociedad, condemned the sentence: “This sentence is an attack on basic rights of human beings, not only of free speech, but also the right to work. Perez has been prohibited to work for two years. He is not able to make a living, to express his opinions or to be a journalist. He will be in danger of going to jail. It is a complex and hard situation for him and it is very bad for press freedom and for all Venezuelan journalists.
“There is no doubt that the situation in Venezuela is getting worse for journalists.”
International Press Institute (IPI) Director David Dadge said: “The imprisonment of a journalist for expressing a fair comment is an abuse of the rule of law and a violation of articles 57 and 58 of the Venezuelan constitution.
“Journalists have a right to act in the public interest and highlighting nepotism falls fairly within the ambit of a journalist’s work. No journalist should ever be punished for acting on behalf of the public and exposing the wrongful actions of politicians.”
In recent months several media organisations have come under attack in Venezuela. On Monday, 14 June IPI reported on attempts by Venezuelan authorities to arrest Guillermo Zualoga, the owner of Globovision, the last independent TV station in the Latin American country.
On Tuesday, 8 June five Molotov cocktails were thrown at the Torre de la Prensa, home to the Ultimas Noticias, El Mundo and Líder newspapers’ offices, in Caracas. No one has yet claimed responsibility and the police are currently investigating. However, Scharfenberg cast doubt on how thorough the investigations are.
