Probidad, Persecution of critics like Bernal promotes corruption in the long run

The afternoon of April 6, 2004, human rights activist and university professor Miguel Antonio Bernal went to an interrogation that was scheduled as part of a disciplinary process initiated against him by the University of Panama administration. The appointment was about declarations made by Bernal, through the communications media, criticizing the rector of this academic center, Gustavo García de Paredes, specifically his measures to confront the institution's budget deficit.

Upon arrival at the place where the interrogation was to take place, the Dean's Lounge at the Dentistry Faculty, Bernal was the victim of threats and insults hurled by administrative functionaries and students who gathered at that place and considered Bernal an enemy of the university. Faced with this, the university professor opted to leave, having adduced the "lack of judicial guarantees" for the interrogation and having left that clear in a note sent to the president of the Academic Council's disciplinary committee, Omar López. The latter declared in the local news media that the interrogation would be deferred to a later date.

Bernal was accompanied by the Special Delegate for Freedom of Expression, Guido Rodríguez and the Director of Judicial Resources and Actions for the Defensoria del Pueblo (National Ombudsman's office), Guillermo Ríos, to whom the atmosphere of hostility toward the accused was proven. The Defensoria del Pueblo, in a communique dated that same April 6, called upon the university authorities to evaluate the motivations for the procedure against Bernal. "Criticism of whatever authority must not activate processes like the one initiated by the nation's principal center of studies, which threatens freedom of expression," warned the Ombudsman's office.

Bernal's criticisms against García de Paredes came after the electoral process that brought the latter to the university rectorate. "Patronage, intimidation, votes as as function of jobs and sinecures and other vices that we Panamanians suffer in the national elections every five years once again characterized [the university elections.] To this was added on this occasion the tragic aggravating factor of the intervention of the Comptroller General of the Republic and the Minister of Economy and Finance in favor of the winning candidate," the professor wrote. To this he added that "they adopt measures against academic excellence and detrimental to the already weak research program, by reducing the hours availability for research and suspending the full-time research positions and returning those professors to full-time teaching. The argument made in justification is economic savings, but they have raised the salaries of aides and professors in administrative positions, and at the same time increased the number of those."

Probidad sent a letter to the rector of the University of Panama in which it expressed its criticism of the process which he is pursuing against Bernal. "Lamentably, in Latin America the universities are not exempt from the lack of transparency and acts of corruption that characterize other state institutions," Probidad warned, pointing out that to eradicate these practices "the unrestricted exercise of criticism, complaint and the right to dissent are fundamental."

"The initiation of disciplinary processes like the one imposed against Bernal irremediably becomes a cover-up measure that impedes the open and free discussion of problems at an institution as important as the University of Panama," the civic institution warned, as it asked García de Paredes for the sake of university transparency to end the disciplinary harassment of Bernal and other persons who disagree with the rector's policies.

Probidad is a Latin American anti-corruption organization with headquarters in El Salvador.

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opinion

Disciplinary harassment for dissenting
at the University of Panama

opinion

Disciplinary harassment for dissenting at the University of Panama

Disciplinary harassment for dissenting
at the University of Panama