COSTA RICA'S PRESS FREEDOM IN DOUBT.
By Lauren Wolkoff
[The following article is reprinted with permission of The Tico Times, San Jose, Costa Rica. It first appeared in the Feb. 2, 2001, edition of The Tico Times.]
In an ironic and coincidental coupling of events, Costa Rica's leading daily, La Nacion, was slammed last week with nearly US$200,000 in libel and defamation damages based on the claim of a former Costa Rican diplomat, just in time for the arrival of a delegation from the World Press Freedom Committee (WPFC) that came to push for major media-law reform.
The polemical Jan. 24 ruling of the Supreme Court against La Nacion and one of its reporters was inevitably thrust into the spotlight, as some of the country's top media-savvy figures prepared to take a hard look at Costa Rica's press laws alongside the visiting members of the worldwide press watchdog association.
The three WPFC delegates arrived in San Jose Jan. 29 and were expected to leave Feb. 2, after a busy week consisting mainly of private consultations and lunches with national media directors, politicians, and lawyers, and culminating in a meeting with President Miguel Angel Rodriguez and a press conference Thursday afternoon.
Press law shields public officials
WPFC leaders told The Tico Times this week that some of Costa Rica's restrictive press laws are jeopardizing the country's reputation as a stable democracy with a strong record in human rights. The main example the WPFC cites is the country's "desacato" (insult or irreverence) law, which provides a shield for public officials who feel their honor has been damaged by media or public scrutiny.
Considered a criminal offense here and in all Latin American countries except Argentina and Paraguay, a desacato conviction carries a sentence of anywhere from a month to two years in prison, or as much as three years in prison if the offended party is a high-ranking official such as the president, according to Article 307 of the Costa Rican Penal Code.
"This type of law marks a country as an undemocratic system," said WPFC executive director Marilyn Greene in an interview early in the week. "No country can call itself a democracy that puts its journalists in jail."
"We came here to try to persuade legislators, judges, and journalists that the insult law should be eliminated," she added. "Once officials see that, they will have accepted the principle that public officials do not need special protection that private citizens do not have."
Not everyone is convinced...
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