Costa Rica’s new president Rodrigo Chaves Robles is the latest Central American head of state to escalate attacks on the press, calling the country’s media “the enemy” and “rats.”
This increase in hostility across the region is a concern for press freedom organizations.
“It's not something we’ve had to worry about in Costa Rica in recent years,” Natalie Southwick, Latin America and the Caribbean program coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists, tells The Progressive. “If you have an administration that’s hostile towards the press and that’s not interested in guaranteeing transparency, that has a lot of really concerning implications for the ability of journalists to do their job and to hold the government accountable.”
Media organizations and reporters could, for example, be blocked from accessing information and elected officials.
The sixty-one-year-old Robles was inaugurated in May 2022, despite a major scandal that surfaced during his campaign. He had been demoted and had his salary frozen during his thirty-year tenure at the World Bank following accusations of years of sexual misconduct.
The attacks on the press are unprecedented in Costa Rica, which is widely seen as the most stable democracy in the region. In the 21st century, one journalist has been killed in the country, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists: Parmenio Medina Pérez, of the radio station La Patada, was killed in 2001 for his reporting on corruption.
In the past, journalists in Costa Rica largely could be censored through the use of libel laws. But the country eliminated prison terms for defamation cases in 2010.
Increasingly, members of the media have also faced surveillance by the state forces. In 2014, the organized crime unit of the Costa Rican police monitored telephone calls of the daily Diario Extra as part of a leak investigation.
“Governments are looking at and to each other for models for how these repressive laws could work.”
“There’s a history there of the police specifically targeting an outlet and getting access to its phone records as part of their activities,” Southwick says. “A little less than a decade later, we know that police and intelligence agencies have access to much more sophisticated tools that allow them to intercept all sorts of information.”
Press attacks and other threats to the democratic process are reflective of the re-emergence of authoritarians in the region.
“We have someone in power who seems to be following more the route of some of his contemporaries in the region, in Central America, as well as the rest of Latin America,” Southwick says. “Moving away from respect for these democratic norms . . . and instead trying to use attacks on the press as a way to kind of bolster their image.”
Over the past decade, attacks on the press have rapidly increased throughout Central America.
Guatemala has seen a quickly deteriorating situation under the administration of Alejandro Giammattei. During a speech in September, the president accused the Guatemalan media of manipulating information to advance its “agenda” and “ideologies.” In July 2022, authorities arrested and detained daily newspaper El Periódico founder and journalist José Rubén Zamora. A prominent anti-corruption voice, he faces spurious money laundering charges. The defense has sought to free Zamora to house arrest, but an appeals court upheld his detention on September 2.
Guatemala has also seen a number of journalists forced into exile, including El Periódico’s Juan Luis Font and CNN’s Guatemalan correspondent Michelle Mendoza.
Zamora isn’t the only journalist in the country to face criminal charges. Carlos Choc, a Guatemalan community journalist from El Estor, in the department of Izabal, faced charges for inciting riots with his reporting on the impact of mining projects in that community. On September 13, he went before a judge in eastern Guatemala, who freed him of all charges, ruling that there is no evidence to prosecute him—a small victory. But Choc continues to face one other charge that stems from a lawsuit levied against the mining company for allegedly kidnapping five Russian citizens during a protest in 2017, according to Prensa Libre, which has yet to be decided.
In El Salvador, president Nayib Bukelehas systematically attacked the independence of the media, especially the independent newpaper El Faro. These attacks have led to the exile of journalists from the media.
In Nicaragua, the regime of Daniel Ortega and his wife Rosario Murillo, who is also his vice president, have escalated their attacks on the press in the last few years. This has led to 140 journalists exiled, eleven journalists imprisoned, and fifty-four media outlets shuttered.
In addition, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Nicaragua have all approved legislation that allows governments to target their critics, including measures that permit the states to shut down NGOs they accuse of undermining their rule.
“Governments are looking at and to each other for models for how these repressive laws could work,” Southwick says. “They are being replicated.”