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The Minister of Justice, Iván Lima, described this Monday as “excessive” the preventive detention measure for the journalist Luis Muñoz, who was denounced by the director of the Mining Administrative Jurisdictional Authority (AJAM), Brenda Lafuente, for publishing memes. In the opinion of the authority, there was an act of psychological violence, but the communicator should defend himself in freedom.
“When you are a public official you have to be subject to criticism from the country and from the population, therefore, this fact does not reflect the democratic values of our Constitution,” Lima said in an interview with Gigavisión.
“I see that there was a situation of psychological violence on Thursday, this is how the conduct of the journalist who is currently being investigated is typified, and we hope that it can be repaired through the procedural means that are available at this time. Today there should be an appeal hearing for that decision, which seems to me to have been excessive by the precautionary judge”.
You can also read: Relatives of the imprisoned journalist denounce abuse of power
The authority stressed that anyone who expresses himself critically of the Government on social networks or the media must be sure that the State “is not going to act in the way that has occurred in this case.” Lima maintained that the principle of freedom of expression is constitutional and “must be preserved.”
“Neither is the investigation going to be closed, nor is freedom of expression going to be punished. What you have to have is due process and the right thing to do in this case is to continue the process in freedom of the person who has been apprehended. I think, definitely, that he has to defend himself in freedom from the accusation that he is receiving,” he concluded.
Specifically, Lafuente denounced Muñoz for the crime of political violence against women. This, after, in the framework of his work as an AJAM official, the communicator made a meme, presumably at the request of the same authority.
You can also read: The ANPB denounces an attack against freedom of expression in the case of Muñoz
The family denounced that the director abused her power and assured that she threatened to “move all her influences” until she was taken to a cell in the San Pedro prison.
“He uploads memes to social networks, that’s his job and she (the director) hired him for that, to clean up his image,” said the journalist’s sister who, before going to work at AJAM, worked at Bolivia TV and others. La Paz media.
“My brother uploaded a meme that she herself told her to upload, but in that meme he placed (the label) false, she was aware and had not yet uploaded it. He went to show her to ask her if she was okay or what’s up to fix, but she directly took his cell phone, she had it for two hours in the office and she gave herself the luxury of eliminating what was going to harm her and then she called the police and they brought it to the Felcc de la Sucre”, the family member continued, in statements recorded by the Bolivisión network.
Muñoz was sent last week to San Pedro with preventive detention for four months.
