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Eliana Aponte

Few journalists have exposed government wrongdoing in Latin America quite like Gustavo Gorriti.

The Peruvian journalist has uncovered some of the hemisphere’s biggest corruption scandals — and suffered the consequences. Having risen to prominence in the 1980s chronicling the rise of the brutal Shining Path Marxist guerrilla insurgency, he soon found official malfeasance a rich target. When he exposed the drug ties of President Alberto Fujimori’s intelligence chief, the hard-right government kidnapped him.

He sought refuge in Panama, where his reporting would once again rattle the powerful. The government tried to deport him.

But now, at 76 years old, Gorriti is facing an attack unlike any since Peru’s 2000 return to democracy: He’s been named the subject of a criminal investigation into claims he traded “media support” to government lawyers for leaks about Operation Car Wash, the multinational probe that has toppled leaders across Latin America.

Advocates for press freedom say the claim distorts the ordinary and constitutionally protected practice of investigative journalism. They fear that Peru’s conservative government — which has effectively <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/peru-votes-bring-back-twin-chambers-congress-after-30-years-2024-03-06/" target="_blank">rewritten the constitution</a> to consolidate power, sought control of the electoral authority, and reversed moves against drug trafficking and <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/02/peru-changes-forestry-law-will-threaten-survival-indigenous-peoples-un" target="_blank">illegal logging</a> — is taking aim at the independent news media.

Gorriti, the editor in chief of the investigative site IDL-Reporteros, was one of the journalists who exposed Operation Car Wash, the years-long probe into a sprawling kickback and money laundering scheme years that has ensnared presidents and other officials previously seen as untouchable.

Now he’s accused of strategizing with government lawyers to assist them in that investigation, a prosecutor wrote in a 15-page document notifying Gorriti.

Prosecutor Alcides Chinchay is demanding that Gorriti turn over the phone numbers he used between 2016 and 2021. He says he plans to authorize “lifting the secrecy” of communications between Gorriti and the lawyers. Chinchay declined to comment.

Media advocates describe the allegations as a threat to investigative journalism in Latin America. Gorriti denies wrongdoing; he says he’ll refuse to hand over any of his anonymous sources.

“Whatever the cost,” Gorriti said, “we will not provide any information that will affect our sources or our right to do our jobs as journalists.”

Cris Bouroncle

Gorriti’s lawyer has asked for clarity on what prosecutors mean by “media support.” The journalist believes it refers to coverage of developments in the case and efforts to block the work of the Lava Jato prosecutors that ended up supporting the investigation. But he says his newsroom also criticized those prosecutors.

Press freedom advocates say Gorriti was simply following standard journalistic practice and publishing crucial information in the interest of the public.

Cristina Zahar, the Latin America coordinator for the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, described the accusations against Gorriti as “absurd.”

“You are criminalizing journalism and investigative reporting,” she said.

Peru’s attorney general’s office says no one is immune from investigation. In a <a href="https://twitter.com/FiscaliaPeru/status/1773731467584995500" target=_blank>statement</a> shared on X, the office said journalists have a right to protect their sources, but prosecutors may demand information about communications between people who are under investigation.

“All citizens can be investigated under the constitutional protection of the right to the presumption of innocence,” the office said. “Investigating does not imply ‘criminalizing’ anyone.”

Adriana León, director of the press freedom program at Peru’s Institute of Press and Society, said the investigation threatens the constitutional right of journalists to protect their sources of information. She agrees that anyone, including journalists, may be investigated but says the allegations against Gorriti reflect a complete misunderstanding of investigative reporting.

“Sources always have their own interests” in speaking to journalists, León said. Gorriti, she said, did what any journalist would do: He received leaked information, corroborated it independently and published it.

Zuliana Lainez, president of Peru’s national journalist association, says the case threatens a critical remaining pillar of democracy in Peru.

“Faced with a political scenario in which you have an institutional takeover of the public prosecutor’s office, the legislative branch, the executive, and the constitutional court, the only institution left standing with independence is the press,” she said. “This becomes the last obstacle to overcome to act with absolute impunity.

In the past year, Freedom House reported last month, no democracy in Latin America has deteriorated faster than Peru.

After the attempted self-coup and ouster of President Pedro Castillo in late 2022, 50 people died <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/02/04/peru-protests-ayacucho-shining-path/" target="_blank">during protests</a>, 20 in what Amnesty International has deemed <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/amr46/6761/2023/en/" target="_blank">extrajudicial killings</a>.

In the year since, the country has seen dramatic backsliding in judicial independence. The constitutional court has weakened judicial review and given additional power to Congress. Congress has tried to purge the national justice board — the panel that oversees judges, prosecutors and electoral bodies, established after Gorriti and others exposed widespread corruption in the courts.

“It’s death by a thousand cuts,” said Will Freeman, the Council on Foreign Relations fellow who wrote the Freedom House report.

Peru was one of the countries most affected by the Lava Jato scandal, in which the state-owned oil firm Petroleo Brasileiro and construction giant Odebrecht offered bribes in exchange for contracts across Latin America.

Goritti and his IDL-Reporteros colleague Romina Mella were among the first journalists to chase the story, starting in 2011 with a piece on Odebrecht contracts with the government of then-Peruvian President Alan García. They eventually created a network with journalists across South America to investigate a scheme they knew was much more widespread.

The reporting and subsequent court cases would eventually implicate four former Peruvian presidents. One of those, García, killed himself in his bedroom in 2019 when police arrived at his home to arrest him.

IDL-Reporteros would uncover systematic corruption at the highest levels of Peru’s justice system. The reporting captivated the country and led to sweeping changes, including the establishment of the country’s national justice board.

At the time, Gorriti and his colleagues were hailed for their reporting.

“It was impossible to walk down the street without someone talking to you,” Gorriti said. “It was clear that would eventually end. Not much later, the attacks began.”

Far-right activists have repeatedly harassed, stalked and threatened Gorriti and his colleagues at IDL-Reporteros, sometimes protesting outside their Lima newsroom as well as throwing flares and excrement at the headquarters.

Right-wing members of Congress, prominent politicians and a far-right TV news program have fixated on Gorriti, helping fuel a misinformation campaign. Lima’s far-right mayor has described him as the most powerful person in Peru and accused him of ties to George Soros. He’s received antisemitic attacks and death threats.

With a corruption trial set to being in July against Keiko Fujimori, the former president’s daughter and a powerful politician herself, the attacks have escalated, Gorriti says.

Lainez worries about a chilling effect across Peru’s independent media.

“If they can do it with Gorriti, a leader in investigative journalism,” she said, “what could this mean for a local journalist, 2,000 kilometers from Lima, confronting people in power?”

The harassment peaked at the worst possible time for Gorriti: while he was in the midst of receiving chemotherapy for an aggressive cancer last year. Instead of focusing on his health, Gorriti is defending himself in the troubled courts — while continuing to report on the cases and trials.

“We are marching toward a direct confrontation,” he said.

National Headliner Award, first place for news series, 2020 

NLGJA: The Association of LGBTQ Journalists, Excellence in Long Form Journalism Award, 2020

Indiana University, BA in journalism and Arabic 

Samantha Schmidt is The Washington Post's Bogotá bureau chief, covering all of Spanish-speaking South America. 

Samantha Schmidt

washpost

Journalists see Gustavo Gorriti investigation as attack on Peru democracy

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