MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Uruguay's media law bill reaches Senate - Mujica warns of foreign sharks.

“It's okay to have freedom of the press, but what you don't have to have is a monopoly”, said Uruguay president José Mujica on Tuesday.

President and journalists organisations deem LSCA necessary to avoid handing the media over to outside operators. They see no danger to freedom of speech in legislative project as it is.

Uruguay president José Mujica said on Tuesday in a radio interview that he agreed on the need to regulate broadcast media, because “I don't want [media giants] Clarín, Globo or [Mexican billionnaire Carlos] Slim to end up owning communications” in the country. Mujica also warned about the threat of falling “into the hands of some foreign power or group”

The Upper House was to vote later on Tuesday on the Reporters Without Borders (RWB)-backed LSCA (Broadcasting Communication Services Law) bill, which had to be put on hold in December 2013 due to the nearing presidential elections, after being passed by the House of Representatives.

“It would seem that anything regulatory is a deadly sin”, Mujica explained. “I think exactly the opposite: If we don't regulate, the sharks from abroad will eventually swallow us.”

The President also favoured that sanctions, when applicable, should be up to the Judiciary branch of government and not up to a committee that could be created by the new law. “You can't let the Executive have tools of that kind in such a delicate matter.”

Meanwhile, RWB said it was pleased that the bill’s latest wording again provides for the creation of a Broadcasting Communication Council that is independent of the government, a provision which had to be dropped last year because Uruguay’s Constitution bans the establishment of new public offices during the 12 months prior to a presidential election.

Opposing the bill is the National Association of Uruguayan Broadcast Companies (ADEBU), which has labeled it as “authoritarian”, “fascist” or just a gag law, while Uruguayan Press Association labour leader Daniel Lema considers that “most countries have legislation regulating radio, TV and print media, either in their entirety or piecemeal, as in our case, and these countries are far from all being fascist. They include the United Kingdom, Chile, Brazil and Argentina. Our model is different from the models chosen in Ecuador and Venezuela.”

If approved by the Senate on Tuesday as expected, the bill is set to go back to the Lower House for final modifications on December 22.

Uruguay is ranked 26th out of 180 countries in the 2014 RWB press freedom index. In a list topped by Finland, other placings are: Suriname 31, ... United Kingdom 33 ... , United States 46 ... , Argentina 55 ... , Chile 58 ... , Guyana 67 ... , Bolivia 94, Ecuador 95 ... , Peru 104, Paraguay 105, Brazil 111 ... , Colombia 126 ... , Mexico 152 ... , Cuba 170.