The State Attorney General’s Office has instructed the National Police to file a criminal complaint for a crime against public order. Among those charged is Claudia Cisneros, journalist and activist.
I have not reviewed the case of the other investigations. In Claudia’s case, not only can you not agree with the Attorney General’s Office, but you must be absolutely against it.
Claudia said that the streets would burn if a pro-Fujimori fraud was cooked up. “Know well that, if Fujimorism is cooking up an attempt at fraud, the streets will burn, because the vote of the people will be respected, and not that of a mafia and its allies.”
Who could think that there is a crime here? There is not even the announcement of a threat.
Claudia Cisneros made a forecast. Aren’t all citizens free to make projections, calculations, premonitions or warnings?
How can you believe that opinion is a crime? How can you believe that a conditional sentence is equivalent to a criminal act?
It is incredible that a state attorney does not know what freedom of expression is. All journalists must categorically reject this violation of freedom.
These accusations and threats are absurd and dangerous. The PNP must exercise the right to due disobedience. No prosecutor can order the Police to commit an illegal act.
Dissent is essential for democracy. Fraudism is an idea. You can give your opinion about it. What cannot be done is deny the right to give an opinion or to predict.
The message from the Attorney General’s Office seems to be: “don’t get into these troubles.” Claudia is not going to believe it, but others, less firm in their convictions, might. When the threat comes from the State, we have to worry doubly. And doubly denounce and reject.
All of us who believe in freedom and its guarantees must stop this use of public office to attack it. The freedom of one is the freedom of all. If they attack one, they attack us all.
It’s not about this or that opinion. We are not talking about a political idea. We are referring to the freedom that makes possible the expression of all opinions and all ideas.
That is why we must defend Claudia Cisneros: for her freedom and that of everyone else.
*El Comercio opens its pages to the exchange of ideas and reflections. In this plural framework, the Diario does not necessarily agree with the opinions of the columnists who sign them, although it always respects them.
