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the media; those who favored the Government were given privileged information and
the media that was critical did not even receive information that should be public.
The actions of the Judiciary also had an intimidating effect on the other owners of
media, who were frightened when one of them was deprived of the ownership of his
medium.
Such cases occurred systematically and not in isolation. The plan for the 1989 coup,
which did not happen until 1992, stated that it was necessary to coordinate “selfcensorship and the permitted frame of reference [at the time of the coup], with
those responsible for the media, entrepreneurs and promoters.” The Octavio Plan,
the Bermuda Plan and the Narval Plan had been executed since December 1996.
One of the results of the complaints about these plans in the press was the search
for those who had “leaked” information to the press.
The most obvious
consequences were the torture of Intelligence agent Leonor La Rosa and the
dismembering of agent Mariela Barreto. These were concrete, not theoretical, plans
to apply a policy of control over the media. There were various other examples,
similar to those mentioned above.
From the moment the Intelligence Service, which was the apparatus that controlled
these actions, began to disintegrate, the situation of freedom of expression began to
improve in Peru. There has been an opening up. However, it is evident that there is
still considerable influence over information policies.
EXPERT EVIDENCE
Expert report of Samuel Abad Yupanqui, Professor of Constitutional
Law of the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru and Defense Counsel
of the Peruvian Office of the Ombudsman, specialized in
constitutional matters
When Mr. Ivcher Bronstein was granted nationality in 1984, Law No. 9148 was in
force, and Article 4 established that nationality was granted through a “supreme
resolution”, but only becomes effective when the nationality title is acquired, after
the original nationality has been renounced in a public deed.
Once the said
resolution has been decreed, the Migration and Naturalization Directorate cannot
refuse to issue the title.
Mr. Ivcher was deprived of his nationality through “Directorial Resolution” No. 117 of
1997, published in the official gazette El Peruano of July 13, 1997. In Peru, there
had never before been a case of a nationality title being cancelled.
The said “directorial resolution” was an administrative act that rescinded Mr. Ivcher’s
Peruvian nationality title, based on three elements. First, a report prepared by a
department of the Ministry of the Interior, which concluded that the file on the
adquisition of nationality procedure did not exist in the archives of the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs, or in those of any other organ of the public administration. Second,
the finding that the legal document where the original nationality was renounced
corresponded to 1990, and that, therefore, there was a lack of consistency between
this fact and the acquisition of nationality six years previously. Third, that the
renunciation had not been established before the competent authorities of the
country of origin. Consequently, it was considered that Mr. Ivcher had not respected