INDEX ON CENSORSHIP | VOL.53 | NO.3
LEFT: Journalists from the Federation of Press Workers protest against further press regulation
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evident the negligence of the authorities, who are called on to guarantee the safety of journalists and press workers as they carry out their jobs.”
While in government, Morales frequently accused critical media outlets of lying, and Reporters Without Borders has warned that there is a “trivialisation of stigmatisation” of journalists. The country slid by seven places to 124/180 in the organisation’s 2024 World Press Freedom Index.
Unitas, a non-profit that monitors rights and freedoms in Bolivia, identified 143 cases of press freedom violations during 2023. Of these, 30 were physical, sexual or psychological attacks against journalists, while 28 involved threats or intimidation. All too often, these attacks go unpunished.
In one of the most egregious incidents of recent years, six journalists reporting on a land occupation in Guarayos, in the eastern Santa Cruz department, were met by men with guns, who shot their vehicles’ wheels, kidnapped them and destroyed some of their equipment.
Bolivian police played the attack down, describing it as an “altercation”. Nobody has been prosecuted for the attack and Zulema Alanes, president of the National Association of Journalists of Bolivia, warns that upcoming judicial deadlines mean it could soon end in impunity.
Claudia Teran, co-ordinator of Unitas’s rights defenders programme, pointed out that while attacks were often perpetrated by private individuals or shock groups, who may or may not have ties to the government, the government did little to protect the journalists affected. “When journalists report this kind of attack, the state’s mechanisms of investigation and punishment are very weak,” she said.
Even for routine coverage of street protests, insults and aggression against journalists have become commonplace, according to Alanes. Women are particular targets for sexual harassment and degrading insults. “They say, ‘Why don’t you go back to the kitchen?’” Alanes said. “We’re in a situation of violence and persistent violation of press freedom and of direct physical violence against journalists, with impunity and without reparations or justice.”
The government also uses state advertising spending as a mechanism to discipline media outlets. In June 2023, government-critical newspaper Pagina Siete announced its closure. In a letter to readers, president of the board Raúl Garáfulic Lehm blamed a perfect storm, accusing the government of withholding state advertising and harassing the paper with audits and fines, while going easy on more sympathetic outlets. One of the major challenges likely to face journalists going into the elections is a scenario of extreme polarisation, Zulema Alanes of the National Association of Journalists said. It and other civil society organisations have formulated recommendations to guarantee that citizens can inform themselves. One of these involves organising obligatory debates for presidential candidates. They have also recommended that Bolivia’s electoral authorities ally with factchecking organisations Chequea Bolivia and Bolivia Verifica to combat the spread of misinformation and fake news.
Claudia Teran, of Unitas, and Alanes both called for Bolivia to implement a law on access to information. “Access to public information should be the rule, not the exception, and refusal should be justified,” Teran said.
For Miranda, Bolivia doesn’t just need policies. It needs a paradigm shift.
“We need a society that really enjoys the right to freedom of information,” he said. “We need to move towards critical dissidence, towards a vigorous critical citizenship that permits structural change.”
We’re in a situation of violence and persistent violation of press freedom
Amy Booth is a journalist reporting from South America
53(03):16/18|DOI:10.1177/03064220241285682
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