Free Speech Advocates on Edge Over Punitive Grenada Media Law

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Parliament of Grenada, the Caribbean nation and largest island of the Grenadines, has passed a punitive social media measure that has drawn fire from free press proponents, The Guardian reported this week.

The new law carries one-year jail terms for violators who make "offensive" comments, or send tweets or emails on social media platforms and media Web sites, according to the Guardian article. Knowingly posting false information to cause "annoyance...insult...and ill will" also is prohibited by the new law.

A spokesperson for the International Press Institute voiced concern over the law's criminalizing matters that previously have been handled through civil remedies, and was fearful of the new law's impact on investigative journalism and freedom of speech.

UPDATE: Journalists Challenge Restrictive Media Law in Ecuador's Constitutional Court

 (Photo credit: Presidencia de la República del Ecuador)

The Wall St. Journal reported this week that journalists and other free press advocates have asked Ecuador's highest court, the Constitutional Court, to overturn a restrictive media law enacted in June (see "TUOL" post 6/14/13) by a National Assembly supportive of President Rafael Correa.

Correa, who has ruled the South American Republic since 2006 and famously grappled with journalists in court whom he has sued for slander, backed the media law revisions. Among the changes in the new law is a redistribution of television frequencies, the lion's share of which were privately owned, so that a third would be run by the government, a third of radio and tv frequencies would remain in the hands of  the private sector, and the remaining 33 percent would be community-run.

Critics of the new law, who contend it suppresses the freedom of opinion and expression, are especially troubled by the creation of a government communications superintendent position that would be empowered to sanction the news media and conduct audits, according to the Journal article.