20 Congress considered this situation to be “the most serious known manifestation of corruption in the history of the Republic of Paraguay.” In relation to this situation with the Itaipú project, several public complaints were made, not only by the Bicameral Committee, but also by political opposition sectors, in different media, such as the newspapers “La Tribuna”, “ABC”, “Última Hora” and “La Nación”, some political weekly newspapers such as “El Pueblo”, and the official weekly newspaper of the Ferrerista Revolutionary Party, which aired the issue, despite political constraints imposed by the regime. Owing to his intellectual competence and technical training, Mr. Canese collaborated closely with the Unified Workers Central on the findings presented to the Attorney General’s office on corruption in the construction of Itaipú; he also collaborated with the Bicameral Unlawful Acts Investigation Committee on this issue. It would have been important for Mr. Canese to travel to Brazil when the Bicameral Committee invited him to form part of the delegation investigating in situ the corruption in Itaipú. At that time, Mr. Canese was providing advisory services to the Bicameral Committee on the specific issue of Itaipú. Mr. Canese’s training and competence, and also his commitment to investigating the facts relating to the construction and startup of Itaipú, are well known. The witness has neither represented nor defended Mr. Canese. c) Expert report of Horacio Verbitsky, journalist The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) recently presented a report on the quality of democracy; it notes that one of the basic factors for which societies reproach Governments relates to high levels of corruption and the lack of mechanisms to control it. In this context, freedom of expression is, at the very least, the peoples’ “right to protest.” The Itaipú hydroelectric dam was built with private bank credits, which made it impossible to control the management of the funds. In this situation, the possibility of scrutiny through public debate, political debate and the reflection of this debate in the press acquired special relevance. The fact that this case refers to a “political leader,” a candidate to an “elected position,” does not alter the fundamental dimension of freedom of expression. The construction of public works using State and public funds is, by definition, “one of the fundamental issues of collective and public interest.” It is difficult to imagine cases where the public interest is more ostensible than in construction works in which “thousands of millions of dollars” are invested, money which comes basically from the taxpayer. In this case, the complainants filed the action “on an individual basis,” even though they had not been named specifically by Mr. Canese, who had mentioned their companies. In this respect, in several cases before the InterAmerican Commission, it has been stated that the proceeding before the Inter-American System is a mechanism to protect individuals rather than companies. In this case, there had been no offense against the complainants, but rather a “political reference to the activity of the companies with which these individuals were connected.”