Document #1086540
IRB – Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada (Author)
The journal Mate Amargo, in its 30
January 1991 issue, publishes a summary of violence and human
rights abuses dating back to 1985. The source states that on 12
April 1989 Mate Amargo's reporter Anahí Canales was
detained by policemen who seized her tape recorder because she
recorded threats against her while covering a teachers'
demonstration (Mate Amargo 30 Jan. 1991, 3).
The same publication reports that on 13
September 1989 the subcomisario (deputy sheriff) of Durazno,
José P. Rodríguez, challenged Daniel Erosa to a duel
because he had written an article denouncing a case of rape and
escape at Durazno's jail (Ibid.). Finally, the report states
that the police beat up those participating in a meeting for the
launching of a new publication titled Ratas y Rateros
(Rateros is a term widely used in South America for thieves,
while Ratas, literally meaning rats, is also a derogatory
term used widely for corrupt or dishonest people and criminals in
general. The South American equivalent of "cops and robbers" is
"policías y rateros," although it is not clear from the
small entry in the report whether a game of words was intended with
the name of the publication). The report adds that during the
incident shots were fired, some were injured and arrests took place
(Ibid.).
The Mate Amargo chronology does not
report any cases of harassment, abuses or attacks against members
of the press during the year 1990.
Please find attached a copy of the section
on "the Right to Information" from the report on human rights for
1990 published in Spanish by the Uruguayan Servicio de Paz y
Justicia (SERPAJ). According to the report, the daily El
Día was closed for 24 hours on the eve of the 1989
elections because it published, in violation of the electoral law,
political propaganda within 48 hours of an election (SERPAJ 1991,
14).
In February 1990 a police officer
challenged the directors of the daily La República to
a duel because of a news item published there which he considered
had tainted his honour (Ibid., 14-15). The final outcome of
the incident is not reported.
The same source adds that, from January to
October 1990, there had been six legal actions carried against
press media (Ibid., 15). Three of them were in demand of a
right to reply, and one was carried out by the President of Uruguay
in response to a report in the police-news weekly Al Rojo
Vivo accusing him and his family of a fraud involving a large
sum of money. The report praises the fact that the President sought
a legal remedy, which ended up in a retraction and acknowledgement
of the information's falsehood by the journal's editor, instead of
having applied pressure through other means (Ibid.).
The New York-based Committee to Protect
Journalists did not report any abuses or attacks against members of
the press in Uruguay in its yearly report for 1990 nor in its
periodical reports for the first four months of 1991.
Further information on harassment, attacks
or abuses against journalists in Uruguay in 1989, 1990 and 1991
could not be found among the sources currently available to the
IRBDC.
Mate Amargo [Montevideo]. 30
January 1991. "La otra cara de la `democracia'."
Servicio de Paz y Justicia (SERPAJ).
1991. Derechos Humanos en Uruguay - Informe 1990.
Montevideo: SERPAJ.
Servicio de Paz y Justicia (SERPAJ).
1991. Derechos Humanos en Uruguay - Informe 1990.
Montevideo: SERPAJ, pp. 14-16.