opinion

Also in this section:
Stimson, Moving a tree
Sirias, Hunter S. Thompson and Oscar Zeta Acosta
Shelton, A better way to do the post-Panamax locks
Pilgrim, Global warming --- Mother Earth's agony
Sánchez, Russia renews its Latin American ties
Silié, A new historical and geographical view of the Greater Caribbean
Reporters Without Borders, Freedom of the press threatened in Panama
Jackson, A fitting place for the legislature to do their dirty work

Bernal, A coup d'etat against freedom of expression

Panama's coup d'etat against freedom of expression

by Miguel Antonio Bernal

Esteemed defenders of the freedom of expression:

While President Bush was receiving President Martín Torrijos, who was on an official visit to the White House in Washington, and characterizing his guest as a "leader with vision," in Panama the legislative caucus of the Democratic Revolutionary Party (of which Torrijos is secretary general, and which always follows Torrijos's dictates), was proceeding to approve, on the eve of Carnival, a Penal Code whose contents are offensive to human rights and the advances made by humanity in this field.

Without going into all the ways that the contents of the proposed penal law ignore the Statute of Rome, the UN and OAS conventions against corruption, the articles that serve to violate due process and a long list of et ceteras, the new code embraces the most repressive policies about defamation and freedom of expression.

The drafting of the articles about these subjects, now that they have been made known, is more than a setback, it's an open and bald-faced attack on freedom of expression, which was already in a fragile state.

Thus I appeal to you for your solidarity, and for your organizations to cooperate in rejecting this curtailment of freedom of expression and the right to information in our country. We must break the complicit silence of the majority of professional, business, labor and political organizations on this subject and your communiques, letters, faxes and emails will be an enormous contribution.

The Panamanian government is promoting a Free Trade Agreement with the United States, but it would exclude the subjects of freedom of expression and the right to information.

The government of Panama presents the Panama Canal as an example of progress toward freedom of navigation, but that claim can't be meaningfully judged with freedom of expression and the right to information curtailed.

The OAS has scheduled a meeting of its General Assembly in Panama City for this June, but by then we will have been condemned to an even more grave situation. Panama may have been made a member of the UN Security Council, but meanwhile we Panamanians are having our fundamental human rights guarantees violated.

I want to end this communication by expressing my recognition of the human rights organizations to whose leaders this is sent and the things that are being done for our liberties.  

Stimson, Moving a tree
Sirias, Hunter S. Thompson and Oscar Zeta Acosta
Shelton, A better way to do the post-Panamax locks
Pilgrim, Global warming --- Mother Earth's agony
Sánchez, Russia renews its Latin American ties
Silié, A new historical and geographical view of the Greater Caribbean
Reporters Without Borders, Freedom of the press threatened in Panama
Jackson, A fitting place for the legislature to do their dirty work

Bernal, A coup d'etat against freedom of expression