Legal advisor to the President, Cesar Pina Toribio announced that the government would be willing to revise the recently passed ruling regarding the Comision Nacional de Espectaculos Publicos that rules TV and radio operations after organizations such as the InterAmerican Press Association (IAPA) and The Foundation for Institutionality and Justice (Finjus) deemed this a return to government-promoted censorship of freedom of speech, long overcome in the DR. Pina Toribio said that the government never intended to curtail freedom of speech. He discarded that the passing of the Ruling 301-05 creates a “superpower” that empowers the Comision Nacional de Espectaculo Publicos with discretionary powers over TV and radio transmissions. The ruling became law on 7 May after it was signed by President Fernandez on 7 May.
Hoy newspaper reports that Gonzalo Marroquin, president of the IAPA, in a document released in Miami, Florida urged that the government revoke the ruling that flagrantly violates principles of freedom of speech and press. He criticized that the ruling allows for the application of administrative sanctions (including the closing of media) on those who “disrespect the authorities and public institutions”. Marroquin says this is contrary to the role of the press that is precisely to be critical of government actions.
Furthermore, he criticizes that the ruling goes to the extreme of banning the transmission of so-called alarming news, including among these fires, coverage on hurricanes, floods, without previous approval of the competent authorities.
Finjus called the ruling “the consequence of improvisation and an attempt against freedom of speech and press that should be rejected by citizens.”
Veteran journalist Miguel Guerrero, in a contribution to El Caribe newspaper today, writes that the new ruling places in the hands of bureaucrats the facility of deciding what or what can’t be said on radio or TV. “The problem is that any criticism, regardless of the tone, could be object of the application of this ruling of fascist-inspiration,” he writes. He explains that since the government already exercises so much influence in the press, in both its condition as a primary news source and major advertiser, this will lead to self-censorship of the media. Guerrero is most critical that the ruling seems to be guided with the intent to eliminate all criticism that, on the contrary, seeks to keep the public authorities within the limits established by the law and the Constitution.
“With this ruling, we are taking a time machine to a kingdom of intolerance and censorship,” he writes.