MEDIA : In South America, the Press Still Fights for Its Freedom

Until an appellate court ordered their release last week, the editor and publisher of the free-swinging Uruguayan daily La Republica spent 15 days running the newspaper from a jail cell in Montevideo.

The two journalists, brothers Federico and Carlos Fasano, had been sentenced to two years in prison under an old, arcane law: attacking the honor of a foreign head of state.

In a long expose, the paper accused the president of nearby Paraguay of corruption. The Uruguayan judge refused to consider voluminous documentation that the journalists offered as a defense. Mere publication of the article was a crime, the judge ruled, regardless of its accuracy.

That verdict touched off outrage among journalists and human rights groups in Latin America and elsewhere. Even Spanish folk singer Juan Manuel Serrat sent a letter expressing solidarity with the imprisoned journalists.

The case shows that, although the South American press has had a front-line role in strengthening democracy after years of military domination, it still confronts obstacles to freedom that require fundamental reform.

“In other eras, the repression in these countries was carried out with the kidnappings and killings of journalists,” said Horacio Verbitsky, an Argentine investigative journalist who led a protest campaign in Buenos Aires, just across the Rio de la Plata from Montevideo. “Today, that does not happen, fortunately. But there are still very restrictive laws that must be done away with.”

Unlike the United States and Europe, where coverage of alleged misconduct by public officials enjoys especially strong protections, statutes similar to the Uruguayan law persist in a dozen Latin American nations, Verbitsky said. Challenging those restrictions is part of the unfinished business of democratization in the region.

There have been improvements. After Verbitsky filed a formal complaint with the Organization of American States in 1993, the Argentine government agreed to rescind a law that punished with jail terms anyone who offended the honor of a public servant. And papers and television programs in the region blast away at alleged government corruption--with varying degrees of responsibility and skill--daily.

Still, the freedom is fragile, Verbitsky said: “These archaic laws are still being detected and will have to be overturned by legislatures. The end of the century is four years away, and you still have the phenomenon of journalists being locked up for something they printed.”

Uruguay, a tranquil nation of 3 million with a long democratic tradition, suffered through a period of military repression and guerrilla violence in the 1970s and early 1980s. The case of the imprisoned journalists focused unusual international attention on Montevideo, the capital, and on two newspapermen whose hard-charging editorial style is not universally well-regarded.

Verbitsky said he is not an admirer of the Fasanos, saying La Republica has bordered on sensationalism. But he said the article on Paraguay was extensively researched and that the allegations are being investigated by Paraguayan congressional representatives.

The two journalists are free pending an appellate ruling. Changing the law, which dates from 1934, requires changing the constitution.

The hostilities began when La Republica alleged that Paraguayan President Juan Carlos Wasmosy, who survived an attempted military coup last month, illegally benefited from construction of a huge hydroelectric dam. The project allegedly generated a mysterious $26 million in unnecessary costs, believed to be a cover for payoffs, the newspaper asserted. Wasmosy emphatically denied wrongdoing.

Uruguayan authorities charged the brothers under a criminal statute that prohibits attacking the honor of a foreign head of state and exposing the nation to diplomatic or commercial reprisal. The trial was brief and stormy; as the paper’s staff crowded outside the courtroom, Judge Zulma Casanova ruled that the story’s veracity was not at issue.

Amnesty International joined the chorus of critics, demanding that the conviction be overturned.

Uruguayan President Julio Sanguinetti has said the separation of executive and judicial powers prevents him from intervening in the case.