CPJ condemns Peruvian journalist communications secrecy lifting

São Paulo, 4 October, 2024—The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on the Peruvian Prosecutor’s Office to immediately close the illicit enrichment case against investigative journalist Paola Ugáz and reverse its order to her phone company to disclose her phone records and geolocation data from 2013 to 2020.

On September 26, Ugáz appealed to the court to drop its August 2023 order over her communications records, which was made in relation to a money laundering suit brought against her in 2021 and ended in 2023 by the Prosecutor’s Office.

“CPJ is really concerned by the years of judicial harassment that Paola Ugáz has endured since she and Pedro Salinas started investigating a religious organization in Peru in 2010,” said CPJ Latin America Program Coordinator Cristina Zahar. “Revoking the confidentiality of her communications is illegal under Peru’s constitution, as it could expose her journalistic sources and personal details, but it could also lead to reprisals against her.”

Ugáz has been the target of multiple criminal lawsuits since she and Pedro Salinas co-authored the 2015 book “Half Monks, Half Soldiers,” which alleged a pattern of sexual, physical, and psychological abuse within the Sodalitium Christianae Vitae, a Peruvian Catholic lay organization.

Carlos Rivera, Ugáz’s attorney, told CPJ in a phone interview that the same facts used in the 2021 case of money laundering were used in the 2023 illicit enrichment suit. “Since the Prosecutor’s Office’s eight-month investigation deadline was past due, in January 2024 we appealed to a local court to try to end it,” said Rivera, adding that the judge accepted it and ordered the prosecution to close the investigation.

But, according to Rivera, the prosecution appealed and additionally asked to lift Ugáz’s communications secrecy based on a resolution from August 2023. “This really shocked us because we weren’t aware of it,” said Rivera who on September 26, 2024, appealed to revert the resolution of lifting his client’s communications secrecy.

“It is a tragedy to be the first Peruvian journalist to have their communications lifted with legal tricks, a treatment reserved for criminals,” said Ugáz.

The Prosecutor’s Office answered CPJ’s email requesting for comment saying that the case is confidential.