This report details the information provided during the regional thematic hearing “Impact of State censorship measures on the right to freedom of expression in the Americas” led by 25 civil society organizations during the 190th Regular Period of Sessions of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (hereinafter, “IACHR” or “the Commission”). The 25 civil society organizations work in seven Latin American countries: Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico and Nicaragua.
In the present or in recent history, at different levels, each of these countries has faced contexts of limitation to the exercise of the fundamental rights of freedom of the press, freedom of expression, access to information and the right to defend human rights in relation to such rights. Despite the differences in contexts, we have verified the same roadmap designed and executed to undermine public participation and the dissemination of relevant information about public authorities. These indirect censorship strategies identify and serve authoritarian practices while weakening democratic systems.
In this context of greater prevalence of anti-democratic governments, three types of indirect censorship are evident that generate concern and aggravate the threat to the free exercise of basic freedoms in a democratic state: i) stigmatization; ii) forms of social control facilitated by new technologies with surveillance capacity; iii) the judicialization of freedom of expression on matters of public interest.