Number of LATAM projects as of July 2023
| COUNTRIES | PROJECTS | |
|---|---|---|
| ARGENTINA | 7 | |
| BRAZIL | 28 | |
| CHILE | 3 | |
| COLOMBIA | 14 | |
| ECUADOR | 2 | |
| GUATEMALA | - | |
| MEXICO | 13 | |
| PARAGUAY | 2 | |
| PERU | 2 |
Topics bills presented between August 2021 and July 2023
| Access to information | 6.9% | |
| Bullying | 10.3% | |
| Apologia | 5.2% | |
| Freedom of speech | 8.6% | |
| Equality and non-discrimination | 17.2% | |
| Internet Access | 1.7% |
| Privacy | 1.7% | |
| Protection of minors | 15.5% | |
| Reputation and honor | 5.2% | |
| Content moderation | 5.2% | |
| Gender Violence | 5.2% | |
| Indigenous rights | 3.4% | |
| Fake News | 1.7% |
Subjects bills presented between August 2021 and July 2023
| Access to information | 4.8% | |
| Bullying | 9.5% | |
| Apologia | 4.8% | |
| Freedom of worship | 1.6% | |
| Equality and non-discrimination | 15.9% | |
| Official advertising | 4.8% | |
| Fake News | 1.6% | |
| Protection of minors | 14.3% | |
| Reputation and honor | 4.8% | |
| Content moderation | 4.8% |
07/07
The Provincial Electoral Tribunal (TEP) of Santa Fe ordered Google to deindex publications that "discredit" the pre-candidate for governor Carolina Losada, mainly because they are content disseminated by an anonymous advertiser called "La Provincial". The court concluded that anonymity prevents the author of the publications from being known and, therefore, the principle of authorial and financial transparency required by electoral campaigns was not recognized. Javier Pallero, CELE Advocacy Coordinator, joined the discussion here.
FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION ELECTIONS
26/07
The governor of La Rioja, Ricardo Quintela, opened the sessions of the Constituent Convention and proposed to limit the journalistic exercise when considering that they fulfill the function of misinforming and disseminating biased information.
FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION FREEDOM OF THE PRESS
29/06
The STF receives a complaint against Otoni de Paula for attacks on social networks directed at Alexandre de Moraes. the Federal Supreme Court (STF) unanimously accepted the complaint filed by the Attorney General's Office (PGR) to bring federal deputy Otoni de Paula (MDB-RJ) to trial for offenses directed at Minister Alexandre de Moraes on social media. Specifically, in live broadcasts carried out in 2020, Otoni de Paula called Moraes "garbage", "scoundrel", "sewer", "despot" and stated that Moraes should be ashamed of her past. Deputy is one of those investigated in the Inquiring 4.828, which deals with the organization and financing of anti-democratic acts. The rapporteur minister Nunes Marques considered that the deputy exceeded his right to freedom of expression, especially for having made those statements in a live broadcast on social networks, which expanded the dissemination of the content. In addition, the minister pointed out that the words of Otoni de Paula would not be protected by parliamentary immunity. With this decision, the federal deputy will be accused of defamation, libel and coercion in the course of the process. In September 2021, the São Paulo Court of Justice (TJSP) sentenced Otoni de Paula to indemnify Moraes for the attacks.
FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION DEFAMATION
30/06
The TSE declares Bolsonaro ineligible for improper use of the media. The Superior Electoral Court (TSE) condemned by 5 votes to 2 former president Jair Bolsonaro to be ineligible for the next 8 years. The Court considered that Bolsonaro abused political power and misused the media by disclosing on his social networks a meeting with ambassadors in which he attacked the Brazilian electoral system. The TSE did not extend the sentence to Braga Netto, a vice-presidential candidate in Bolsonaro's candidacy, arguing that he did not participate in the event. The case was brought by the Democratic Labor Party (PDT). In August 2022, Minister Mauro Campbell ordered Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Empresa Brasil de Comunicación (EBC) to remove the video of the meeting. Bolsonaro still faces 15 other lawsuits in the TSE for actions during the 2022 campaign, which also include requests to declare him ineligible. The TSE also forwarded the ruling to the Federal Supreme Court (STF) and immediately communicated the decision to the General Electoral Corregidury Secretariat, the Electoral Attorney General's Office (PGE) and the Union Court of Accounts (TCU).
FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION DEFAMATION
11/07
The project seeks to establish the identity verification of people who have accounts on digital platforms. Federal deputy Domingos Sávio (PL/MG) presented the Bill 3516/2023, which modifies the Civil Framework of the Internet to implement the mandatory identification of users who publish content online. According to the project, Internet applications only would allow the publication of content by “duly identified” users. The proposal defines the publication of content as "text, image or audiovisual content publicly available to a broad and indeterminate group of users", distinguishing it from private messages, which would operate "in a restricted and determined area". For identification, the project suggests that the Users must present an "official document with a photo of national validity" and provides penalties for unidentified persons, such as warnings and fines. According to the legislator's justification, the measure seeks to restrict anonymity to combat the use of the Internet for "the dissemination of false news, defamatory and offensive content, child pornography, [...], as well as the commission of various crimes against citizens or against the public." State".
FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION PERSONAL DATA PROTECTION
13/07
The TJSP acquits a councilor accused of racism. Judge Fábio Aguiar Munhoz Soares, of the 17th Criminal Staff of the São Paulo Court of Justice (TJSP), acquitted a councilor who had been accused of racism. The process originated from a statement by councilor Camilo Cristófaro Martins Junior, from the city of São Paulo, who forgot to turn off his microphone during a virtual session of the ICC in which he was participating. The councilor is a car collector and would have asked some friends for help to wash his collection of more than 30 cars. In the end, A friend asked him if the cleaning had turned out well, to which Camilo would have replied that they had not washed his sidewalk and, according to him, not washing it would be "a black thing", an expression that was emitted in his open microphone of the ICC. The councilor declared that it was a joke, a thesis that was followed by the judge in the case. According to the judge, the statement would have been "extracted from a context of joke, joke, but never from a context of segregation." He decided that the statement was not intended to offend. Therefore, the judge considered the criminal action inadmissible and acquitted the councilor.
FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION
14/07
The TJSP condemns Mário Frias for improper use of image. El federal deputy Mário Frias (PL/SP) was sentenced to compensate a Venezuelan woman for the improper use of her image, according to the decision of Judge Fábio Rogério Bojo Pellegrino, of the 1st Vara Cível do Foro Regional VIII do Tatuapé of the Court of Justice of São Paulo (TJSP). According to the records, the deputy reproduced on his Instagram account a decontextualized fragment of an interview with a Venezuelan woman on the "Caldeirão do Huck" program of Rede Globo. Frias would have published the image without his authorization, with the caption: "Venezuelan says that communism ruined her country in just 2 years«. The judge clarified and contextualized the content of the video, stating that “the author reported that she was a History and Geography teacher in Venezuela and that education in the country faced difficulties with the military presence in schools. When asked by the presenter Luciano Huck how long it took an undemocratic government to ruin her country, she replied: 'Two years'. Mário Frias did not present a defense, for which he was tried in absentia and sentenced to pay R $ 20,000 for the improper use of image.
FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION
25/07
El site Migalhas reported that a judge made reference to a false news about a statement attributed to President Lula about robberies. According to the site, Judge Gilberto Alves Braga Júnior, from the Jales region, São Paulo, would have issued a decision in a case related to a robbery, in order to keep a defendant in prison because other measures would not be enough to prevent him from committing new crimes. In his decision, the magistrate would have referred to a statement by President Lula that would relativize the conduct of the robbery. However, this alleged statement by Lula comes from a manipulated video that was released during the electoral campaign for the 2022 elections, attributing to the then candidate Lula a statement that he did not pronounce.. According to the site, upon hearing the news, the Union Attorney General's Office (AGU) decided to file a complaint with the National Justice Council (CNJ) against the judge for abuse of rights.
DISINFORMATION
11/07
On July 11 and 13, two statutory bills were filed in the Constitutional Court, which were approved by Congress towards the end of the last legislature. Now, the constitutionality of both projects must be reviewed by the Court before they can become law. The first project is a new electoral code. Among other problems, the code does not offer sufficient guarantees of transparency by third parties involved in the disclosure of results and scrutiny. On the other hand, the bill against violence against women in political life will also be reviewed. Although well-intentioned, the bill contains a number of ambiguous provisions, such as "symbolic violence", which can lend themselves to arbitrary application by electoral authorities. After his arrival, the Court is expected to invite citizen participation in the first days of August before proceeding to study the constitutionality of both projects.
ELECTIONS GENDER VIOLENCE FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION
12/07
In association with other organizations in the region, Colombian freedom of expression organizations they presented on July 12, before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, testimonies, figures and recommendations on the problem of legal harassment against journalists and people who publish content of public interest. The organizations asked the Commission and its Office of the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression to recognize the danger of these actions and take measures to address the problem. So far this year, the Foundation for Press Freedom (FLIP) has documented 43 cases of legal actions taken with the intention of silencing journalists in Colombia.
FREEDOM OF THE PRESS VIOLENCE AGAINST JOURNALISTS
12/07
La organization Article 19 condemned the murder of journalist Luis Martin Sánchez Iñiguez after he disappeared on July 5 of the same year. The authorities report that the journalist's body was found in El Aguacate, Municipality of Tepic in Nayarit. The organization demanded that the federal and state prosecutors carry out expeditious investigations and the leaders of this journalist and two other journalists who disappeared in the region; and, to the Mechanism for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders and Journalists, to guarantee the protection of collaborators and relatives of these journalists.
FREEDOM OF THE PRESS VIOLENCE AGAINST JOURNALISTS
13/07
La Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation resolved the constitutional controversy filed by the National Institute for Transparency, Access to Information and Protection of Personal Data, indicating that the Senate made an omission due to the failure to designate members of this institute, for which reason it requests that said appointments be made.
ACCESS TO INFORMATION PERSONAL DATA PROTECTION
19/07
Various organizations and journalists demanded the Governor of San Luis Potosí to refrain from issuing speeches that stigmatize the press and require him to create a public policy focused on the prevention and protection of the press.
FREEDOM OF THE PRESS
27/06
The right-wing extremist group calling itself "La Resistencia" staged a new act of harassment of journalist Rosa María Palacios outside your home. For hours, the group launched insults and grievances against the journalist, also attacking her physical appearance in a derogatory manner. This episode marks the second time this year that the radical group appears in front of the journalist's house.
FREEDOM OF THE PRESS VIOLENCE AGAINST JOURNALISTS
12/07
The Prosecutor's Office of Peru decided to close the investigation for money laundering against the journalist Paola Ugaz. The case had been opened in 2021 after a publication in the newspaper Expreso and a complaint filed by Mr. Luciano Revoredo. However, the Prosecutor's Office declared that the facts denounced lacked credibility and credibility. No elements of conviction were found that linked the journalist to the crime of money laundering, and the complainant's statement was questioned due to its lack of consistency. The resolution issued by the Prosecutor's Office ends the investigation and exonerates Paola Ugaz from the accusations.
FREEDOM OF THE PRESS
17/07
The Constitutional Court of Peru declared inadmissible a habeas corpus petition filed against the mayor of Lima, Rafael López Aliaga, for alleged threats to the life of former president Pedro Castillo and the leader of Perú Libre, Vladimir Cerrón. The lawsuit was filed by Moisés Alfredo Verástegui Campos, who alleged that López Aliaga publicly threatened Castillo and Cerrón during a rally in May 2021. However, the Constitutional Court determined that the expression used by López Aliaga, “death to communism, death Cerrón and Castillo", did not constitute a "certain" and "imminent realization" threat.
The Court's decision was based on the lack of evidence to support a real and concrete threat to the rights to life and personal integrity of the complainants. The lawsuit had already been declared inadmissible by previous judicial instances, both in the Fifth Unipersonal Court of Chiclayo and in the Third Criminal Court of Appeals of Lambayeque.
FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION
18/07
The 4th constitutional court of Lima issued sentence in the case known as "Media Concentration", declaring founded the amparo process initiated by 8 journalists, and the nullity of the purchase and sale contract of 54% of the shares of the companies Epensa and Alfa Beta Sistemas (owners, then, of the newspapers Correo, Ojo, Ajá and El Bocón) by Grupo El Comercio.
The court considered that this commercial transaction violated the fundamental rights of freedom of expression and information, protected in the Constitution and in the American Convention on Human Rights, and affected the pluralism of information. The sentence is appealable before the Superior Court of Justice of Lima.
FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION ACCESS TO INFORMATION
19/07
Journalist Tifanny Tipiani, from Panamericana Televisión, and cameraman Gustavo Castro, they were harassed by more than a hundred people while covering the anti-government marches in Plaza San Martín, in the center of Lima. The reporter was interviewing Mr. Willi Montoya Quispitongo, president of the National Confederation of Graduates of the Armed Forces of Peru and close to former president Pedro Castillo. Tipiani denounced that when they saw them interviewing Montoya, the crowd surrounded them, pushed, insulted and harassed them. Given the situation, the journalists had to be evacuated from the Plaza with the support of the Serenazgo.
FREEDOM OF THE PRESS VIOLENCE AGAINST JOURNALISTS
20/07
During anti-government demonstrations in Lima, seven journalists were attacked, according to the record of the Observatory of Press Freedom of the National Association of Journalists of Peru.
Gabriela Ramos Carbajal, a freelance photojournalist, was injured by a blast of pellets, suffering injuries to her back, arms and face, which led her to be transferred to the hospital. Antonio Melgarejo, a photojournalist for the newspaper La República, denounced that while he was covering the march he was approached by unknown persons who stole a lens from his camera. Rober Llicla, a member of the AutoConvocados Photographers collective, was hit in the head with a stone while covering the demonstration, also requiring medical attention. At night, Karina Reynafarge and Leonardo Dávila, ATV journalists, denounced acts of harassment and the theft of their drone, which was later destroyed while they were recording the protests.
FREEDOM OF THE PRESS VIOLENCE AGAINST JOURNALISTS
26/07
The prosecution requested pretrial detention for a university student who would have written "Dina Asesina" on a wall during a protest against the Peruvian government. This measure has been considered disproportionate and a possible attack on freedom of expression and the right to protest.
FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION
