TOP STORY
US slaps visa restrictions on Paraguayan journalist
Talk show host Enrique “Kike” Gamarra was one of six foreigners stripped of their visas by the United States government on Tuesday over comments made about the murder of Charlie Kirk. In a TV programme soon after the September assassination of the pro-Trump political activist – known for saying mass shootings are a price worth paying for the right to bear arms – Gamarra said that Kirk “was a son of a bitch and died according to his own rules.”
In a series of posts on X, the US Department of State said it had “no obligation to host foreigners who wish death on Americans,” adding that those celebrating Kirk’s death “are no longer welcome in the US.” Also punished for expressing their opinions online were a South African national, a German, an Argentine, a Mexican, and Brazilian standup Tiago Santineli, who compared Kirk to Hitler.
The State Department posts included the nationalities of the affected individuals and translations or screengrabs of their comments, making them easily identifiable: and potentially violating US laws which require the information of visa holders and applicants to remain confidential. Civil liberties campaigners in the US – where the First Amendment protects free speech for citizens and non-citizens alike – described the visa crackdown as “censorship, pure and simple.”
THE PARAGUAY POST ANALYSIS:
Gamarra, a prominent pro-China voice and critic of ex-president Horacio Cartes, isn’t the only Paraguayan journalist to be targeted by the Trump administration in recent weeks. On September 10, a pro-Cartes troll tagged Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau and news anchor Menchi Barriocanal in a post suggesting Barriocanal’s daughter – also a prominent feminist activist – is part of an “antifa” group in Paraguay. Landau responded with his trademark el quitavisas (“the visa-snatcher”) meme, although he subsequently deleted it.
Pro-government media outlets and cyberwarriors have reacted with glee to Landau’s recent interventions, which come at a worrying time for press freedom in Paraguay. Following three attacks on journalists’ homes in recent weeks – two were shot at, another had a molotov cocktail thrown at it – the local reporter’s union (SPP) has called for the urgent approval of a Journalists’ Protection Law.
But on Wednesday, Paraguay’s Cartes-controlled senate postponed voting on the draft legislation for 15 days without clear justification. Cartista congressmen are also moving to water down Paraguay’s Freedom of Information Law (2014) – a key tool for journalists, and one of few real checks on government corruption – to protect officials from scrutiny.
Paraguay and Landau go way back: as a child, he spent several years in Asunción, where his father was stationed as US Ambassador (1972-77). The Stroessner regime was meanwhile torturing and “disappearing” hundreds of dissidents: armed, trained and funded by Washington. With Landau junior’s office providing air support to budding authoritarians within the ruling Colorado Party, history is now repeating itself: whether as tragedy or merely as farce remains to be seen.
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POLITICS
Peña the peacemaker
Santiago Peña was the only Latin American leader present at the Middle East peace summit last Monday. The first most Paraguayans heard of it was when their president was filmed arriving in Egypt. He was due to be in Italy meeting with PM Giorgia Meloni but – a later statement explained – Donald Trump invited him to witness the accord, along with nearly 30 world leaders.
It’s another signal of the ever-cosier relationship between Peña’s Paraguay and Trump’s White House, which just dropped sanctions on his mentor, Horacio Cartes (The Weekly Post, 13.10.25). Opposition lawmakers said the president’s detour to Egypt should have been run past Congress first, and it’s unclear what, if anything, Peña contributed to the fragile ceasefire signed in Sharm el-Sheikh.
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