Legislators recently incorporated in the recently passed Political Parties Law an article that undermines freedom of speech of Dominicans in practice in social media, at a time when there is decreased space for independent media. This is evidenced by the cancellation of radio and TV programs to independent journalists. The provision in the Political Parties Law calls for jail for those publishing negative comments on politicians in social media.
An editorial today in El Dia observes that other provisions had already been incorporated in the Law of Expression and Thought, in the Monetary and Financial Code, in the Law Against High Tech Crimes.
“It would seem that politicians that make the laws, those who draft the laws, and those who sign them into law, are more afraid of words than genocide, terrorism and corruption,” writes an editorial in El Dia on 29 August 2018. The editorialist observes that there are more laws that penalize verbal differences specifically than any other kind of crime in the Dominican Republic.
“What that scaffolding reflects is legislative intolerance, much less acceptable in times when not only is there talk about democracy, but there needs to be quality of democracy,” writes the editorialist.
The clause in the Political Parties Law would seem to be in violation with Art. 49 on Freedom of Speech and Information in the Dominican Constitution. The wording in the Political Parties Law could send government dissenters to jail for “negative comments” on campaigning politicians in social media.
Negative comments, nevertheless, are not defined. But the article in the Political Parties Law equals penalties for negative comments on campaigning politicians to the charges of defamation and personal injury set in other legislation, or penalties of three months to a year for those making these comments in social media.
The legislative clause establishes that the spreading of negative messages through social media that can affect the image of candidates will be penalized according to articles 21 and 22 of the Law 53-07 on high tech crimes. Those articles already refer to defamation and personal injury by electronic media and establish penalties that run from three months to a year in prison and fines from five to 500 minimum wages.
Art. 49 on Freedom of Speech in the 2015 Constitution establishes:
“All persons have the right to express freely their thoughts, ideas and opinions by any means, without prior censorship.
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29 August 2018
