Dominican TV channels cancel airing of PRM documentary: Listín

Santo Domingo.- Dominican TV channels Telesistema 11 and Color Vision 9 last night canceled the broadcast of a documentary that the Modern Revolutionary Party (PRM) had scheduled at 7:50 on the grounds that its content could bring lawsuits, Listín Diario reported today.

According to the report, the PRM immediately accused the government of being responsible for preventing that information was disseminated and interfering with press freedom.

The Dominican Liberation Party (PLD) denied they prevented the broadcast of the documentary, despite considering it as vile, slanderous and libelous.

"Our campaign is based on positive campaign, on telling Dominicans how we will improve their lives every day and how we will do it in the next administration. We have many negative things to say, but we do not want to talk about that, because we are against dirty campaigns. Our campaign is positive," pointed out Administrative Presidency minister Jose Ramon Peralta.

Medina’s campaign chief and Tourism minister Francisco Javier Garcia said that the PLD welcomes the decision of channels Color Vision and Telesistema of not airing the PRM video, for it would lead to a case for slander or libel.

Quoted by Listín Diario, Garcia said that the channels action confirms the allegations the PLD made about opposition candidate Luis Abinader, of starting a smear campaign following his inability to win the 15 May elections.

"We reject the vile, slanderous and libelous content of that video because it is not consistent with the level of democracy and respect for free expression of thought that exist in the Dominican Republic," said Garcia.

According to Listín Diario, García also said that president and presidential candidate of Dominican Republic’s ruling PLD party, Danilo Medina, throughout his political career and the process of the current campaign, has always taken care of developing a campaign strictly attached to the democratic and respectful values of his competitors.

The channels

Under such circumstances, both channels issued a statement at the same time the documentary would be aired, through which they asked the PRM to use the reserved space for any other use within its communication strategy policy, something the party did not accept, the report said.

The PRM reported last night that President Danilo Medina threatens freedom of expression by vetoing a video broadcast. PRM’s campaign coordinator Roberto Furcal said channels Color Vision and Telesistema also censored a message related to Medina’s action.

"In a characteristic action of a dictatorship, the government has pressured the media to prevent the people from knowing important information related to corruption and how it affects the government services to citizens and the life of Dominicans," Furcal said.

The video

The 9 minutes 42 seconds video that would run on television channels described the alleged campaign mounted by Medina’s faction against his party colleague, ex-president Leonel Fernandez, when Fernandez had presidential aspirations and was assailed by drug kingpin Quirino Paulino.

According to Listin Diario, the video shows the first trip made by president Medina after winning the 2012 elections, whose destination was Brazil. At that time, the president was welcomed by Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff and and former president Lula Da Silva.