A journalist from Ecuador was threatened by two men who burst into his newsroom on Sept. 23, reported the Ecuadorian NGO Fundamedios. Reporter Alejandro Escudero works for the weekly Independiente in the city of Nueva Loja, a northeastern province in Sucumbíos, the organization said.
The incident occurred while Escudero was alone in the office speaking with his family in Quito, Ifex reported.
The reporter said one of the men told him “not to peek his head in where there’s a bad smell” while the other showed him a gun he had in his belt, the daily Comercio wrote. After the threat, the men left saying they would come back the next day.
According to newspaper Hoy, Escudero said he wasn’t sure why he was being threatened because lately his weekly has been writing about the same topics that other local media have been covering. The incident was reported to the prosecutor’s office of Sucumbíos and has been condemned by other media outlets in the city, Hoy wrote.
The threat against Escudero is the latest in a series of other intimidations against journalists in Ecuador in recent weeks.
Note from the editor: This story was originally published by the Knight Center’s blog Journalism in the Americas, the predecessor of LatAm Journalism Review.
