Paulo López, a Paraguayan journalist who reported being mistreated by police nearly a year ago, was arrested on Sunday upon returning to his country from Argentina for the holidays. In January 2014, police arrested López in Asunción while he reported for media outlet E’a on detained citizens who had been protesting transportation price hikes. López said that he was arrested arbitrarily and tortured, and that his camera was confiscated. He later filed a complaint over the mistreatment by the police with the Prosecutor’s Office for Human Rights.
However, a few months later, the precinct supplied a medical report showing that one of the police involved in his January arrest had a “light swelling in his cheek,” and charged López with resisting arrest and assaulting an officer in September. Santiago Ortíz of the Sindicato de Periodistas del Paraguay (Paraguayan Journalists’ Union—SPP) affirmed that neither López nor his lawyers were notified of the charge. In October, López was declared in contempt of court, though he was in Argentina studying for a master’s program at the time.
The Coordinator for Human Rights in Paraguay (Codehupy) and the Paraguayan Union of Journalists (SPP) intervened after López was detained at the border on Sunday, ensuring that his hearing took place on Sunday night in the Palace of Justice. He was released after the hearing, but López is not allowed to leave the country or change his address, and must appear before prosecutor Emilio Fúster every month until his case is settled.
Ortíz of the SPP asserted that the charge against López is meant to “intimidate my colleague to desist from his complaint. We qualify (the arrest) as a violation of human rights and a new outrage from the government on the exercise of journalism.” On Thursday, the SPP is planning a festival for freedom of expression in honor of López.
