SANTO DOMINGO.- A group of journalists today expressed their concern with some lawmakers’ push to limit the guarantees in the Free Access to Public Information Law, and still more after the effort sought to constitutionally consecrate it as a State prerogative to decide on a news item’s "veracity."

“It places us under the danger of prior censorship, an odious practice of negating freedom of expression surpassed in our country since the decades of the Trujillo regime," said Juan Diaz Bolivar, the journalists’ spokesman.

The journalists called the gathering after ruling PLD party deputy Alfonso Crisóstomo, of Puerto Plata, on Wednesday submitted legislation which seeks to regulate the information the media serves to the citizens, as said Law stipulates.

The journalists spoke in a press conference in the Dominican Industries Association (AIRD), located on Sarasota Lincoln avenues, headed by Maria Isabel Soldevila, Nuria Piera, Huchi Lora, Ramon Colombo, Altagracia Salazar, among others.

They hailed the support from institutions such the Dominican Journalists Guild, the Institutionalism and Justice Foundation, Citizen Participation and the AIRD.

Crisóstomo’s bill proposes a change in the article on Freedom of Expression and Information, which states: “All persons have the right to information. This right includes the power to receive, look for, investigate and publish all types of information on governmental function by any media, channel or route, in adherence to what the Constitution and the Law determine."

The term “veracity of information" had been included in the legislation, but was rejected in the session of the National Assembly.

Diaz also asked the dozens of reporters and photojournalists present to sign a declaration in rebuke of the latest efforts to muzzle the press.

Threats and warnings

The investigative journalist Nuria Piera, whose singing exposés have ruffled the feathers of several senior government officials, acknowledged having received threats for her work over the years. “I get them but I’ve already developed an instinct on which of those I report to the authorities. It also depends on who’s heading the Police, the Armed Forces or the Investigations Department at the time.”

In that regard, Transparency and Justice Foundation president Trajano Vidal Potentini warned those who would seek to curtail the freedom of the press that the entity is ready file court action to defend it. “Regardless of the source our foundation is at the ready to file constitutional challenges in the effort materializes, and even in international levels if the Supreme Court rules against us.”