Eighty media outlets support Spanish journalist who revealed secrets of murder case
The Asociación de Medios de la Información has warned a two-year prison sentence handed down to the reporter, the first of its type in Spain, violates the fundamental right to freedom of information
R.C.
Madrid
Friday, 7 July 2023, 13:20
Eighty media outlets in Spain have come out in support of a journalist who was sentenced to two years in prison for revealing secrets in the Laura Luelmo murder case.
The Provincial Court of Huelva sentenced the Huelva Información newspaper reporter for publishing information from the case of the teacher murdered in December 2018 in the local town of El Campillo at the hands of Bernardo Montoya, who was punished three years later with a life sentence.
The Asociación de Medios de la Información (AMI), which represents more than 80 Spanish media outlets, has strongly rejected the two-year sentence against the journalist, who was also disqualified from practicing in journalism.
It will appealing the sentence on the grounds that the information was truthful and in the public interest. It is the first time that a journalist has been sentenced in Spain for a crime of this type, as stated in the sentence itself.
The AMI also warned of the danger that this sentence poses for the public and the media, considering that it is "a serious violation of the fundamental right to freedom of information protected by our Constitution". The court has "the dubious power to decide the extent to which journalistic information should be written, despite recognising the accuracy of the information published and the public interest of the case", the AMI also pointed out.
The director general of AMI, Irene Lanzaco, said that, with this ruling, "the public are denied the right to know facts that affect our civic coexistence in a faithful way". "Societies shape their collective conscience on the basis of the information to which they have access and that depriving society of information denigrates its intellectual capacity and its ability to position itself before the facts," she added.
AMI said that magistrates cannot interfere in the role of professional journalists or impose the style guide that should govern the writing of information. "It is the job of the editors of the media to determine the scope of the information they publish, always with the utmost respect for informative rigour and the verification of the facts, values present in the case resolved by the sentence of the Provincial Court of Huelva", the association said.
