Delays not advances in Panama press freedom

Catalina Botero, former Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression of the Organization of American States, in a conference she gave yesterday, Tuesday, under the auspices of the Attorney General’s Office, the National Journalism Council, the UNESCO Chair on Freedom of Expression of the Universidad de los Andes and Columbia University, addressed a topic that is the latest fashion in Panama: kidnapping assets of journalists and media outlets, as well as the use of criminal law to prosecute crimes against honor. Regarding the latter, she said that it should never be used for that purpose, that the alternative is the civil sphere, although she warned that convictions in this branch of the law only proceed when it is proven that the journalist lied. “Seizing the assets of a journalist and a media outlet is extremely dangerous,” she insisted. But the practice in Panama goes in the opposite direction. In this same presentation, the former prosecutor and professor Eduardo Guevara revealed that in the Public Ministry there are 586 files for crimes against honor, and 81 of these involve social communication companies, not counting the kidnapping of millionaire assets suffered by this newspaper, promoted by a former president. This is our reality: visible delays, instead of advances and progress.  – LA PRENSA, Aug. 23.