Worst of the Bad in Press Rights

Nowhere in the Western Hemisphere, Cuba possibly excepted, is there a more systematic campaign against journalists and freedom of the press than in Alberto Fujimori’s Peru. This is the disturbing conclusion of the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, and the fact that Peru can be singled out in a region of press repression is a sorry indictment of that country.

Concerned with Fujimori’s blatant campaign, Rep. Benjamin A. Gilman (R-N.Y.) is preparing to reintroduce a resolution deploring the “erosion of independence of judicial and electoral branches of the government” in Peru and the intimidation of journalists.

Fujimori’s intelligence services intrude on the lives of both journalists and opposition politicians, manipulating some and threatening others. When Javier Perez de Cuellar, the Peruvian statesman and former U.N. secretary-general, ran for president in 1995, he sensed his opponent knew what he was going to say and when. That hunch was right. Perez de Cuellar’s telephones had been bugged by Fujimori’s agents.

But journalists and media owners can have it infinitely worse. In 1997, after a television station revealed the use of torture by army intelligence officers and systematic wiretapping of journalists, then questioned the income of Fujimori’s senior intelligence advisor, the full force of the state fell on Baruch Ivcher, the station’s owner. Authorities revoked the Peruvian citizenship of the Israeli-born Ivcher and his partners took away control of the station. Now Ivcher is being prosecuted on phony tax charges.

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of American States should launch an independent investigation of press repression in Peru, and Congress should adopt Gilman’s resolution.