opinion

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Once again, freedom of expression

by Miguel Antonio Bernal

Once again, the subject of the public asset that's freedom of expression divides Panamanians. On this occasion the division is caused more than by the decision of the president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela to cancel the frequency of the 50-year-old television company RCTV, by the declarations of President Martín Torrijos Espino about this subject.

One again, there reappears the marked tendency for certain high authorities of the various branches of government and of some top ranking bureaucrats to try to make us forget that the public asset that’s freedom of expression is the most precious and fundamental right in every society based on democratic principles.

Once again, President Martín Torrijos Espino, his cabinet, his legislators and others attempt to dismiss the fact that independent and pluralist communications media are essential for a free society and for a responsible government. Thus when they apply pressures of any nature on any part of the communications media we have to reject them as unacceptable because they attack the open debate about subjects of public interest that must exist among us on this planet.

Once again they try to make us forget that one of the most effective instruments in the struggle against corruption and impunity is freedom of expression. It’s therefore not so strange that among the repressive regimes, the corrupt governments and some of their benighted functionaries control or attack freedom of expression and resist procedures that guarantee access to information held by the state.

Once again they make an Olympian effort to make us forget, among other things, the Inter-American Convention approved in San Jose, Costa Rica, in 1969, and that Declaration of Principles about Freedom of Expression, which in its 13th article establishes that:

The exercise of power and the use of public funds by the state, the granting of customs duty privileges, the arbitrary and discriminatory placement of official advertising and government loans; the concession of radio and television broadcast frequencies, among others, with the intent to put pressure on and punish or reward and provide privileges to social communicators and communications media because of the opinions they express threaten freedom of expression, and must be explicitly prohibited by law.  The means of communication have the right to carry out their role in an independent manner. Direct or indirect pressures exerted upon journalists or other social communicators to stifle the dissemination of information are incompatible with freedom of expression.

 In recent months we have seen how, in Panama, there has been no lack of attempt to impose new and undue limits on the right of free expression (e.g., the new Penal Code), and how this is exacerbated by the actions of certain officials who forget that without freedom of expression there can’t be freedom, because information is the oxygen of democracy and freedom of expression is essential to combat corruption and impunity.

We citizens must repudiate such actions, come what may, and we must redouble our civic actions to contain and reject this systematic attempt on the part of the authorities to limit criticism of the government.

Don’t forget that those who today fight for freedom of expression allow others to scrutinize the government’s actions and that this is the basis for an informed and appropriate debate about such actions, especially with these actions are guided and inspired by corruption.

During the decade of the 80s, when the apartheid then reigning in South Africa was denounced, we were not lacking for people in government who said that while apartheid was detestable, “you’re dealing with an internal South African problem” and that we had to “avoid all interference.” But nobody can today deny how the pressure applied upon the racist South African regime and the direct aid given to its victims were determining factors in its defeat.

When it comes to freedom of expression, it’s wrong to consider it an internal problem or a sovereign matter for some state.

Once again, in the face of the exercise of power without any moderating influence or any ethical structure’s control, the thoughts of Voltaire come to life, particularly the phrase that sums up the last two decades of his life: “Our guiding passion must be for the public good.”

Bernal, Freedom of expression again
Heck, No sense of reality about Venezuela
Committee to Protect Journalists, Chávez attacks freedom of the press
Munini, Recovering electromagnetic space from the plutocrats
Reporters Without Borders, Defend freedom of the press against Chávez
Smith, Correa should think twice before prosecuting for insults
Wayne, Looking at Cuba without the distorted Miami lenses
Jackson, What to Do about Cuba?

Council on Hemispheric Affairs, Europe's declining influence in Latin America

Silié, Following the European Union's example

Leis, Ten factors in quality education

Sirias, Deadly poison from China