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Colombian justice supports the feminist journalism that denounced the filmmaker Ciro Guerra

2023-02-01T18:36:01.413Z


The Constitutional Court denied a guardianship of the film director, who asked to withdraw the report in which eight women accused him of sexual harassment or abuse


Colombian film director Ciro Guerra at the Morelia International Film Festival on October 25, 2019.Pedro Martin Gonzalez Castillo (Getty Images)

The Constitutional Court has made public a decision expected among journalists and feminists.

Judge Diana Fajardo Rivera reviewed a tutelage filed by Ciro Guerra, a famous Colombian filmmaker, against the feminist media outlet

Volcánicas

.

The film director wanted to force the medium to withdraw an article, published in June 2020 by Catalina Ruiz-Navarro and Matilde

of Milagros Londoño, entitled "Eight complaints of sexual harassment and abuse against Ciro Guerra."

Guerra argued that the outlet and the journalists violated his rights to honor and good name, and his presumption of innocence.

The Court's First Review Chamber did not agree with him and went further: it pointed out that journalism like that of

Volcánicas

must be protected from judicial harassment, such as the one that Guerra could exercise.

Regarding the report in particular, the Court indicated that "the journalists always differentiated between the victims' accounts and their opinion, respecting the constitutionally required standards in each of these contexts, for which reason they did not violate the fundamental rights of the plaintiff."

The extensive report cited eight women, who asked to keep their identity confidential, and who recounted acts of sexual harassment by Guerra between 2013 and 2019. One of them reported a case of sexual abuse.

Volcánicas

cited the testimonies and sought to corroborate them with text messages and people close to the women.

She also extended the chance to speak to the accused director, and posted her responses.

The Court found that

Volcánicas

complied with the standards of impartiality and veracity that protect the right to freedom of expression, exposing the evidence they found but also including the defense of the director, whom they contacted before publication.

"The opinion of the journalists did not come from a vacuum but from a thorough investigation and they, in any case, did not affirm that Ciro Alfonso Guerra Picón had been convicted or is being investigated for any crime," says the Court's decision.

"Therefore, the Chamber did not find elements to determine that the report had the purpose of harming the plaintiff (from the concept of real malice), but rather to contribute to the public debate," he adds.

María Camila Correa is one of the defense lawyers for

Volcánicas

and a member of the

El Veinte

organization , which is in charge of defending cases of freedom of expression.

"This ruling vindicates the voices of women who have the courage to speak, freedom of opinion, of the press, and reminds that gender-based violence is a matter of public interest," she told EL PAÍS.

Correa adds that there is something special in this decision, and that is that she not only defends the report but also the journalists from what has been described as judicial harassment.

“Judicial harassment is a way in which they have sought to silence investigative journalism in Colombia,” says Correa.

After the report was published in 2020, Guerra not only filed the guardianship that was analyzed by the Constitutional Court.

He also filed a criminal complaint in which he argues that the crime of slander was committed with the report, and a civil lawsuit, arguing that the article caused him damage that must be repaired.

He demands a million dollars for it.

The Constitutional Court clarified that every citizen has the right to access justice, but points out that judicial harassment can occur when a person has significant financial resources to hire multiple lawyers to open different cases, to request disproportionate compensation (such as a million dollars ), and when there is a clear imbalance of power.

The risk is generating a “silencing effect” among journalists, since they do not have the resources to face such demands despite having testimonies or evidence that is important to the public interest.

In the specific case, the magistrates considered that there are elements to speak of judicial harassment: the imbalance of power between Guerra and the journalists;

that the director has gone to different judicial scenarios to request the rectification;

compensation impossible to pay;

and "the claim that the judges order the journalists not to mention Ciro Alfonso Guerra Picón again or relate him to criminal acts would result in prior censorship."

That is why the Constitutional Court, the highest court in Colombia, asks to send a copy of its sentence to the civil court that analyzes the million-dollar compensation and to the Prosecutor's Office, where it files the criminal complaint.

"So that, if considered appropriate, they take into account the guidelines established on the abusive exercise of the right of access to the administration of justice and the need to apply a gender perspective when resolving cases related to scenarios of discrimination and violence against women" says the ruling.

“This is, perhaps, the beginning of decisive jurisprudence for press freedom,” said journalist Daniel Coronell on La W radio, who has faced legal proceedings for his investigations and has also accompanied the

Volcánicas

journalists .

The Constitutional Court had previously ruled in favor of freedom of expression in the face of similar complaints of sexual harassment, but not so forcefully against judicial harassment that seeks to silence them.

The news comes as there are new allegations of sexual harassment near the center of power in Colombia.

In January, several women anonymously reported sexual harassment and violence against the academic Víctor de Currea-Lugo, who was going to be ambassador of the United Arab Emirates.

Recently, a woman, whose identity is kept confidential by EL PAÍS, accused the secretary of the presidency, Mauricio Lizcano, of sexual harassment when he was a legislator.

President Gustavo Petro has also requested that cases of possible sexual harassment in Congress be investigated and appointed one of his closest senators to advance the investigation.

The decision of the Constitutional Court is a support for the media that investigate this type of abuse, and for the women who make these complaints even if they decide to do so without revealing their identity to the public.

For

Volcánicas

in particular, a feminist medium that was born in 2020 and whose first publication was the eight complaints against Ciro Guerra, it is a breather.

“[The sources] are very calm and we thank them for their courage in taking the step.

To the Court for making this sentence so beautiful", said the journalist Ruiz-Navarro to La W.

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Source: elparis

All news articles on 2023-02-01

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