PAN-AM HIGHWAY

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By: Mark Fitzgerald Government mobs? International organizations expressed concern that a violent demonstration Feb. 20 in front of the offices of the Guatemalan dailies elPeriodico and Nuestro Diario appeared to be the work of the ruling Guatemala Front political party and the government's minister of communications, Louis RabbE. Throwing rocks and burning newspapers and an effigy of elPeriodico Publisher JosE RubEn Zamora, the demonstrators protested the papers' reporting of Rabbe's alleged corruption. The Committee to Protect Journalists reported camera crews from pro-government TV stations run by RabbE's brother-in-law Angel Gonzalez showed up at the offices 20 minutes before the mob. ... Nicaragua President Arnoldo Aleman's partial veto of legislation forcing journalists to join a colegio or guild is as bad as the original bill, Inter American Press Association President Danilo Arbilla, editor of the Montevideo, Uruguay, weekly Busqueda, wrote in a Feb. 9 protest letter. Aleman's substitute legislation provides for a six-month jail sentence for practicing journalism without a credential from the colegio. ... The small Brazilian daily O Diario is in danger of closing because of a $112,000 judgment -- a record-breaking damage award against a Brazilian newspaper -- in a lawsuit brought by a prosecutor and a judge. Buenos Aires, Argentina-based Asociacion para la Defensa del Periodismo Independiente says the paper, which has just eight employees, was hit with the judgment, even though it documented the truth of its reporting on the two officials. ... Shouting "down with capitalism and journalists," Venezuela President Hugo Chavez claimed in a speech all radio and TV stations were forced to broadcast that a "media conspiracy" led by four or five publishers and broadcasters was trying to overthrow his left-wing government. Chavez encouraged Venezuelans to "shout instructions" at any reporters they encounter.

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(copyright: Editor & Publisher March 5, 2001)

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