Moises Wolfenson
Moises Wolfenson is a former Peruvian congressman (2000-2001), whom because of political persecution and together with his Brother Alex were convicted on embezzlement and conspiracy charges and sentenced on Feb 15, 2005 to 5 years in prison for being in charge of the "chicha press" during the government of ousted President Alberto Fujimori. According to the lawsuit, during Fujimori's mandate, this "chicha press" highlighted the President's good works and tried to destroy his opponents with defamatory front-page headlines. This "chicha press", comprised of about 15 sensasionalist newspapers, followed instructions of the former head of the National Intelligence Service, Vladimiro Montesinos. The idea, carried with sucess, was to maintain popular approval of Fujimori's government by destroying political opposition candidates and politicians. Once Fujimori resigned, many of the newspapers closed, but some, such as "La Razon" and "El Chino" survived. "La Razon", still owned by Moises Wolfenson, opposes President Toledo's government, and it is said that is now the main platform and vehicle for Fujimori's messages from Japan. "La Razon" contends that the Wolfensons were convicted without sufficient proof and that their sentence is in effect political revenge. According to a report on Human Rights Practices, by the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, released March 31, 2003[1], In May of 2002, Toledo's government authorities placed the Wolfenson brothers, publishers of pro-Fujimori tabloid El Chino and of opposition daily La Razon, under house arrest on corruption charges. On June 22 of the same year, a radio station broadcast a tape in which Salomon Lerner Ghitis, the chairman of the government-owned Financial Corporation for Development and a government insider, threatened both Alex and Moises with judicial proceedings and jail time should they continue to criticize the Government. On August 1, an anticorruption judge found the daily newspapers El Men, El Tio and Editora Sport, S.A., the company that published opposition dailies La Razon and El Chino, guilty of corporate embezzlement for the dealings their publishers Jose Olaya and Moises Wolfenson had with Vladimiro Montesinos. In September of the same year a court ratified the house arrest for the Wolfenson brothers
|
|