ALC NEWS SERVICE E-mail: director@alcnoticias.org
------------- CONTENT
PERU: WACC report reveals that media decide which information the public should receive ARGENTINA: CALIR expresses concern the motivation and impact of the caricatures of Muhammad MEXICO: Government Secretary does not measure Protestants and Catholics with the same stick COLOMBIA: Colombia continues to bleed, urgent call from the Ecumenical Network COSTA RICA: Soccer for Life team to participation in Children?s World Match in Germany
------- PERU WACC report reveals that media decide which information the public should receive
LIMA, Mar. 3 (ALC). Despite what we are led to believe, the powerful news media are not a simple window on what is happening in the world; to the contrary, the media constantly decide what information the audience should receive, what they should see, hear or read.
According to the Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP 2005), coordinated by the World Association for Christian Communication (WACC), an international NGO based in London, what people think about who they are as men and women, their values and attitudes, is also influenced by the messages from the media.
According to the investigation, women are
marginalized in the world?s communication media and the radio relegates them the most, with barely 17 percent of news about women, as opposed to 21 percent in the written press and 22 percent on television.
The steep uphill struggle for male-female
equality carried out by women?s organizations around the world is not considered of news interest for the media. Only 4 percent of news at a global level emphasizes gender inequality.
This coincides with the orientation of the news that tends to reinforce gender stereotypes and not to challenge them. Only three percent of the news questions these stereotypes while six percent openly reinforce them. ?Generally the contents of the news reinforce these stereotypes by describing a world in which women are relatively invisible,? the report stated.
The voices and faces of men flood the news, whether they are spokesmen (86 percent) or experts (83 percent), while it is far less probable that women are considered experts. They more frequently appear as protagonists of a personal experience (31 percent) or as spokeswomen of grassroots opinion (34 percent).
The presence of women as victims (19 percent) is disproportionate in news programs compared to men who appear as such (8 percent).
When it comes to ?soft? topics, like celebrities, sports and social affaire women reach 17 percent of coverage, but only 3 percent in economic issues and 8 percent in politics and government affairs.
-------------- ARGENTINA CALIR expresses concern the motivation and impact of the caricatures of Muhammad
BUENOS AIRES. Mar. 2 (ALC). The Argentine
Council for Religious Freedom (CALIR) expressed its concern about the publication in some European countries of drawings allusive to the prophet Muhammad, perceived as seriously offensive to the Muslim faith and which sparked violent reactions that resulted in a loss of life.
Freedom of expression is a necessary condition for the full development of individuals, and has close ties to religious freedom. However, like all freedoms it must be used responsibly, so that it does not become a means of aggression and violence, it affirmed.
CALIR is a non profit association formed by experts in the Church-State relations and who come from several religious traditions. Among its central objectives is a new worship law in Argentina.
?A pluralist society must take into account and respect different sensibilities, in particular religious, to avoid hurting them. Religiosity is a value to be cared for and promoted and must not be ridiculed or scorned,? said a statement signed by Angel M. Centeno and Octavio Lo Prete, president and secretary of this organization.
It stated that even the offenses that each
religious community could consider serious, such as the case that concerns us, anti-Semitism or the sometimes crude mockery of Christian dogmas and symbols, ?cannot justify the violent reaction, promoted by extremists who degrade, manipulate and corrupt religious sentiment.
Finally, it stated its conviction that this
situation will be overcome with dialogue. ?To know the other in their diversity, without giving up one?s own identity and to appreciate their values, is indispensable for healthy life together and to refute the religious nature of political or other conflicts that some wish to convert into conflicts between religions? it said.
---------- MEXICO Government Secretary does not measure Protestants and Catholics with the same stick
MEXICO CITY, Mar. 2 (ALC). The Government
Secretariat, led by controversial Carlos Abascal, does not measure Catholics and Protestants with the same stick, said Carlos Martinez, a journalist who specializes in religious themes, in an article published this week in the daily La Jornada.
The warning that this office gave four Protestant leaders, about not carrying out proselytism in favor of the United For Mexico Party (PUM) contrasts with the simple call given to some Catholic ministers who, according to the author, persist in orienting the vote of their faithful.
The fault committed by the Protestants including Abner Lopez Perez, director of the Mexican Bible Society and former moderator of the General Assembly of the National Presbyterian Church was to participate in a closed door ceremony where he allegedly carried out political proselytism.
The denouncement was presented by Jose Nunez
Castaneda, to the presidential council for the Electoral Institute of the State of Mexico. It was accompanied by a video where Lopez Perez is seen giving encouraging words to some Evangelical PUM leaders so that they carry out their campaigns with integrity.
?But if with the same juridical logic used in this case the constant declarations of the Catholic leaders were measured, we should expect are much harsher sanctions than those applied to the four Protestants,? said Martinez, a layman from the Mennonite Church.
He added that what the Protestants did in
private, the Catholic clerical leaders ?do openly and in public.? The Bishop of Ecatepec, Onésimo Cepeda and Catholic clerics Norberto Rivera y Juan Sandoval Iñíguez continue to ?pastorally orient? the faithful in partisan political questions, according to the author. Moreover, he said that the first has clearly indicated he will continue expressing his political feelings.
Finally, Martinez concluded that for the Secretariat of Governance, the equality of citizens has its limits. ?There are some who are more equal than others and the law is applied in a discretional manner and according to the public relevance of the individuals,? he said.
------------ COLOMBIA Colombia continues to bleed, urgent call from the Ecumenical Network
BOGOTA, Mar 1 (ALC). The Colombian Ecumenical
Network published a dramatic declaration about the serious political situation in the country and called on the international ecumenical community to accompany the Colombian people in their resistance and the construction of peace alternatives that will allow them to overcome the current internal conflict.
?The violations continue to be systematic, permanent and generalized,? sustained the declaration that offers a desolate panorama of Colombia in what has been called the battle against terrorism.
The Colombian Ecumenical Network is made up of the Baptist, Methodist, Lutheran, Episcopal and Presbyterian Churches, the Association of the Inter-American Laurels Church, the Christ the King of Cartagena Church and the Inter-Ecclesial Justice and Peace Commission, Dominican Sisters of the Presentation, the Open Theological Studies Ministerial Program and the Internationals Baptist Theological Seminary of Cali.
The ecumenical organization calls on sister
Churches to support the communities that suffer, to seek the intermediation of the United Nations and the European Union to demand that President Alvaro Uribe fulfill international human rights agreements and to demand that the United States ?stop financing the armed conflict in Colombia.
Even when the country is in the midst of an
electoral process where the internal crisis is sidestepped, the religious organization has accused the government of ignoring the most elementary human rights principles and the breakdown of the social, democratic state.
Colombia continues to bleed, affirmed the Network after indicating that in the first semester of last year there were 297 deaths, 70 percent carried out by paramilitaries, 56 cases of forced disappearances as of December last year, 320 arbitrary arrests and at least 252,000 displaced as of October 2005.
It stated that the so-called ?Justice and Peace? law passed in July 2005 contains a legal framework that does not respect minimum standards of truth, justice and reparation. Together with legal decree 128 (2003) that instrumented the demobilization process, ?It allowed the largest impunity operation in Colombia history,? it said.
The network indicated that the end of
hostilities, a condition of the demobilization processes involving paramilitary groups ?has never been fulfilled.
Due to these regulations, as of June 2005 there have been 2,548 serious human rights violations such as extra-judicial executions and forced disappearances while paramilitary groups continue to maintain connections with State officials, it stated.
Colombia is one of five countries in the world that receives more money from the United States as ?military cooperation?, according to the statement which indicated that military investment in Colombia represents more than 60 percent of the national budget.
The Plan Colombia, set up in agreement with the United States to overthrow terrorism mean a contribution for this country of $1.3 billion for the first three years while between 2001 and 2005 the figure nearly quadrupled reaching $4 billion.
-------------- COSTA RICA Soccer for Life team to participation in Children?s World Match in Germany
SAN JOSE, Feb. 28 (ALC). Soccer for Life, an Oikos Institute Program will send its team to play in parallel world match in Germany next June, said its president Lutheran Pastor Melvin Jiménez.
The national soccer team and the Costa Rican Soccer Federation are supporting the project, receiving the children?s commission in Germany next June 12.
The Oikos Institute specializes in the human
development of the most excluded sector of Costa Rican society such as children and young people, through technical-vocational, sports and cultural activities.
The Lutheran leaders said that the president of the World 2006 Organizing Committee Franz Beckenbauer, who visited the country on February 21, shared a friendly game with the Humboldt School team and the children of Football for Life.
Football for Life encourages this sport and through it a formation in rights, integral sexuality and life projects for children in five urban marginal communities made up of indigenous people and migrants. It is sponsored by the Costa Rican Lutheran Church and Germany?s Bread for the World.
Beckenbauer, the "Kaiser", traveled to Costa Rica as part of a tour of 31 countries. His aim was to congratulate the national soccer team for classifying for the 2006 World Cup.
During his visit to the Soccer for Life Team, the renowned German player emphasized the importance of the sport and gave each one a medal in recognition of their participation. The German Ambassador Volker Fink also donated complete uniforms to the Soccer for Life team.
The Oikos institute was born in May 2003 to complement the experience of the Costa Rican Lutheran Church (ILCO) in its non formal educational work from an ecumenical proposal. --------------------- Latin American and Caribbean News Agency (ALC) P.O. Box 14-225 Lima 14 Peru Tel. (511) 242 7312 - E-mail: director@alcnoticias.org http: //www.alcpress.org