Word: costa
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...while working on a story about a secret jail where political prisoners were said to be tortured. In a deliberate effort to break the system, Schmidt, then an investigative reporter for San Jose's English language Tico Times and for the Spanish language daily La Prensa Libre, challenged the Costa Rican colegio at a San Jose meeting of the Inter- American Press Association (IAPA) in 1980. "I'm covering this meeting illegally," he announced. "Let me work or sue me." The colegio responded to the dare, and a criminal suit followed. At his first trial in 1983, Schmidt was acquitted...
While the case was being appealed to Costa Rica's Supreme Court, Schmidt left the country--and journalism--to become a financial consultant in Dallas. But he continued the fight. When the Supreme Court released its decision, Schmidt rejected the judges' stipulation that the sentence would be suspended if he returned to Costa Rica and apologized to the colegio. Government attorneys indicated that he could receive a pardon...
...course I did not return," Schmidt snapped. "I didn't want a pardon." What he wanted was a test before the human rights tribunal. He got it after the IAPA persuaded Costa Rican President Luis Alberto Monge Alvarez to petition the human rights court for a ruling. Schmidt triumphed, thanks in part to a number of amicus briefs filed on behalf of groups that support freedom of the press, including one by noted Washington Lawyer Leonard Marks and another by Floyd Abrams, one of the U.S.'s foremost experts on press freedom. Nonetheless, President Monge has pointed out, "the opinion...
Even so, free-press advocates are hopeful that the ruling will send a powerful message, starting in Costa Rica. "We cannot imagine," editorialized La Prensa Libre, "that we requested an opinion only to lightly ignore it." Elsewhere, evidence is mounting that the message will not be discounted. In the Dominican Republic, six publishers are pressing a court challenge against that nation's colegio. And in Peru, Editor Enrique Zileri sees the Schmidt decision as the end of any oppressive threat from licensing. He exulted, "It can't happen here." Although gratified about the victory, Attorney Marks feels the battle...
FOOTNOTE: *Bolivia, Brazil, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Panama, Peru and Venezuela...