Concern about public media after President Lugo’s controversial ouster

[EFerrari]

Published on Tuesday 26 June 2012.

Some are calling it a coup. President Fernando Lugo’s hasty impeachment and removal on 22 June is raising many concerns including concern about freedom of information. An organization like Reporters Without Borders that defends media freedom has every right to be alarmed, as the country’s democracy seems to have been shaken and undermined.

An attempt to censor TV Pública immediately after the senate vote removing Lugo and the suspension of certain opinion programmes have reinforced our concern.

“The Honduran precedent, which we have repeatedly condemned, justifies our vigilance although it was much more violent,” Reporters Without Borders said. “News coverage – and often its control – is crucial in a political crisis such as this. The new, legal government cannot hope to restrict the public debate in order to conceal the justified criticism of Lugo’s ouster just nine months before the next presidential election, in which he did not intend to be a candidate.

“Even the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has criticized the lack of fairness and transparency in Lugo’s removal. Such a debate should not be subject to any restriction, especially in the country’s leading media, which must act as vehicles of real pluralism. The Paraguayan public has a right to know the truth.”

http://en.rsf.org/paraguay-concern-about-public-media-after-26-06-2012,42878.html

[Judi Lynn]

2. Corporate spokesman Simon Romero's "take" on the coup:

In Paraguay, Democracy’s All-Too-Speedy Trial
By SIMON ROMERO
Published: June 23, 2012

RIO DE JANEIRO — In the span of a few hours on Friday, Paraguay’s Senate convened its members, read a list of accusations and put President Fernando Lugo on trial. Dismissing his request for more time to mount his defense, the senators abruptly voted to oust him from office, spurring a fierce debate across Latin America over the fragility of democratic institutions in a region with a long history of dictatorships. And late Saturday, both Brazil and Argentina, which wield considerable economic influence in Paraguay, said they were withdrawing their ambassadors to Asunción because of the action against Mr. Lugo.

The Senate’s rush to remove Mr. Lugo, who accepted the vote’s outcome and was quickly replaced by Vice President Federico Franco, was even more confounding since the next presidential elections in Paraguay are just nine months away. Various regional leaders, including Presidents Cristina Fernández de Kirchner of Argentina and Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, denounced the ouster as a coup d’état.

Various takes on that assertion quickly surfaced around the region, including descriptions of the ouster as a “parliamentary coup,” a “constitutional coup,” even a “golpeachment,” merging the Portuguese terms for “coup” and “impeachment,” which spread throughout social networks in Brazil.

~snip~
The president needs cooperation from Congress for key decisions, including naming members of the Supreme Court and directors of the big hydroelectric dams, Itaipú and Yacyretá. For practical purposes, Mr. Lugo was hobbled throughout much of his presidency, emasculated by legislators and eviscerated in the country’s media.

More:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/24/world/americas/in-paraguay-democracys-all-too-speedy-trial.html

[naaman fletcher]

3. Distortes Without Borders

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=405&topic_id=40164&mesg_id=40167

It's worth reading every post in this thread.

[EFerrari]

4. Yes and the same problem exists with HRW and CPJ.

That's when it becomes handy to have a brain and to use it to sift through the facts of a situation.

[naaman fletcher]

5. I agree

But it seems to me that most analysis that goes on here is:

If one of these groups is critical of a leftist government, then they are, by definition, corrupted and worthless

If one of these groups is critical of a rightist government of person, then they are, by definition, pure as the driven snow.