30 August 2006
Conference Explores New Censorship Trend in Latin America
29 August 2006
The Argentina-based Association of Civil Rights (Asociación por los Derechos Civiles, ADC) and the Open Society Justice Initiative have published the proceedings of a regional conference they held in May 2006 which brought together experts, journalists and lawyers from across Latin America to discuss a new threat to free expression in the region: soft censorship.
The two-day conference, held in Buenos Aires on 4-5 May, enabled participants to exchange experiences and perspectives on the growing trend among governments to restrict press freedom by using indirect, subtle methods.
Such methods include the use of government advertising to buy friendly media coverage or to punish critical media outlets. Other methods include denying critical journalists access to government officials, providing secret subsidies to friendly media outlets, and denying media outlets access to newsprint or printing facilities.
Participants discussed possible solutions for counteracting indirect censorship on a national and regional level, including mounting legal challenges at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
The conference follows the publication in 2005 of "The Growing Threat of Soft Censorship", a paper by the Open Society Justice Initiative arguing that governments in Latin America and around the world increasingly use subtler and more sophisticated methods of controlling the media and suppressing criticism (see: http://www.justiceinitiative.org/db/resource2/fs/?file_id=16599).
The report on the Buenos Aires conference, available in Spanish only, can be downloaded here: http://tinyurl.com/znbk3
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