Hello, and welcome back to the Latin America Weekly newsletter. In this issue: Colombia’s anti-corruption bill gets a very controversial amendment, threatening press freedoms. Latin American countries facing myriad challenges to regulate 5G. Once a rank outsider, Franco Parisi could decide Chile’s election.
Colombia’s anti-corruption bill: a gag order in disguise?
Colombia is close to ratifying an anti-corruption bill that does not raise any eyebrows in itself, but which caused international controversy thanks to a last-minute rider. The shoehorned amendment includes provisions for criminal and economic sanctions against media outlets that “slander” current or former public officials.
The amendment. The controversial article 68 states that “a person who demonstrably resorts to defamation to attack or obstruct the constitutional and legal roles of a public official, making false denunciations about them or their family, will be subject to a 60-to-120-month prison sentence and a fine of between 13 and 1,500 times the monthly minimum wage.”
- While the majority of the lower house is in favor of the rider, it was somewhat watered down in the final draft, eliminating the possibility of prison sentences but maintaining the threat of stripping media firms of their legal status.
Response. The Inter-American Press Society