Bolivia

Protests in support of the governor of Santa Cruz department and opposition leader, Luis Fernando Camacho, who has been remanded in custody since December 28, have been met with heavy police deployment and excessive violence. Numerous journalists were attacked.

The IFEX-ALC network urges the government of Bolivia to defend and guarantee freedom of expression and freedom of the press; and to refrain from using the state’s power to pressure or penalize media outlets, as is happening with the Cochabamba newspaper Los Tiempos.

Bolivian authorities must conduct a swift and thorough investigation into the abduction and assault of six journalists by a group of armed men and hold those responsible to account.

The 24 member organisations of the IFEX-ALC network condemn the threats, harassment, attacks and censorship being perpetrated against media outlets and journalists in Bolivia within the context of the country’s current political crisis.

IFEX-ALC calls on the Bolivian government to provide guarantees for the right to freedom of expression and to fulfill its obligations to investigate and bring to justice those responsible for actions against the press.

“Filming a protest is not a crime,” said CPJ Deputy Executive Director Robert Mahoney. “Bolivian authorities should immediately release [radio journalist] Agustín Aldo Mamani from house arrest, and drop all charges against him.”

The editor of the Sol de Pando newspaper and an outspoken editorial writer, Wilson García Mérida was summoned before a prosecutor on 10 May after being accused of sedition by presidency minister Juan Ramón Quintana for no valid reason.

The editor of the Sol de Pando newspaper and an outspoken editorial writer, Wilson García Mérida was summoned before a prosecutor on 10 May after being accused of sedition by presidency minister Juan Ramón Quintana for no valid reason.

The Inter American Press Association has asked the Cochabamaba, Bolivia, Judiciary Council for transparency, due process and access to justice in the criminal case brought against journalist Marianela Montenegro on a charge of defamation.

Journalist Humberto Vacaflor was charged after reporting that President Morales had been one of the masterminds of the murder of a police officer and his wife in 2000.

Reporters Without Borders declares supports journalists hounded by the authorities in Bolivia and condemns the decline in the environment for media personnel since the start of the year, which has included public verbal attacks by officials, intimidation and prosecution threats.

The government is acting under Supreme Decree 181, which has been in effect since 2009 and which allows the authorities to allocate state advertising as they see fit, without being subjected to any criteria.

Reporters Without Borders is worried about the lack of progress in investigations into violence against journalists and the climate of impunity resulting from the slowness of judicial and police procedures.

Rather than operate as a public service channel, critics told the Committee to Protect Journalists, Bolivia TV has morphed into a highly partisan propaganda tool for Morales’s left-wing government.