Less than a month before Bolivia’s general elections on Aug. 17, journalists in the country are working under heightened tension. Press freedom is at great risk amid volatile political tensions that include an unprecedented split in the ruling party, the leftist Movement for Socialism (MAS, for its initials in Spanish). The faction causing the most disruption is that of former President Evo Morales, whose supporters have organized frequently violent demonstrations and roadblocks while intimidating, threatening and attacking journalists.
MAS has split into three main factions. President Luis Arce supports his former government minister, Eduardo del Castillo. Senate President Andrónico Rodríguez, a coca growers’ union leader previously considered Morales’ political heir, launched his own candidacy. Morales, meanwhile, attempted to run for a fifth term. After the Constitutional Court barred him due to term limits, his supporters launched a series of road blockades in central Bolivia in early June, leading to six deaths and countless injuries.
Journalists have been among the non-fatal victims. On June 10, demonstrators blocking the highway between the city of Oruro and the department of Cochabamba intercepted journalists from the online outlet El Fulgor and the private television network ATB, seized their cellphones, and threatened to burn them alive, according to the National Press Association of Bolivia, which represents the country’s largest newspapers. The organization reported 32 physical or verbal attacks against journalists in the first six months of 2025.
The figures compiled by the National Association of Journalists, which represents media professionals, are higher. According to the group, there were 95 attacks on journalists by June 15, 2025, including 51 during blockades led by Morales supporters.
“These are premeditated actions, planned with the intent to silence the media, instill fear, and provoke a logical reaction of self-censorship among journalists,” Zulema Alanes, president of the National Association of Journalists, said in an interview with the LatAm Journalism Review (LJR).
After weeks of intense protests, Morales supporters suspended demonstrations in mid-June. But the truce may be temporary. One of Morales’ key allies, political leader Ruth Nina, said at a rally on July 12 that the country’s Supreme Electoral Tribunal would “count the dead” during the electoral process. A court ordered her arrest for inciting disorder.
Episodes of violence against journalists are nothing new in Bolivia. A particularly serious case occurred in Mairana, in the department of Santa Cruz, during roadblocks by Morales supporters in October 2024. The National Association of Journalists reported that journalists from the Uno Network were kidnapped along with police officers.
“They took their cameras and all their equipment, sprayed them with gasoline taken from Molotov cocktails, and threatened to set them on fire,” Alanes said. Only the intervention of other leaders prevented the threat from being carried out, she added.
Gabriel Romano, a correspondent for the Spanish news agency EFE and president of the Foreign Press Correspondents Association, said there is a culture of radicalized rhetoric that ends up promoting violence. “Radicalism is well regarded. The more radical you are, the braver and more faithful to political principles you’re considered,” he told LJR.
Impunity and a lack of institutional response to attacks worsen the situation. “There is no institutional or formal channel that listens to us,” Romano said.
An emblematic case of impunity followed an incident in Las Londras, Santa Cruz, in October 2021. Journalists covering land invasions were kidnapped for eight hours, threatened with high-caliber weapons, and forced to sign a commitment never to return to the area. “We are about to reach four years, and there is still no justice,” Alanes said.
Raúl Peñaranda, director of the news outlet Brújula Digital and a veteran political analyst, said violence against journalists in Bolivia has altered routine professional practices.
“Now, for any event, Bolivian journalists have to wear a helmet—something we never saw before—because someone might throw a rock or hit them with a stick,” Peñaranda told LJR.
Peñaranda notes a significant shift in what he calls the origin of the violence. Since Luis Arce took office in November 2020, there had been pro-government “shock groups” creating a climate of systematic intimidation, he said. More recently, however, the most serious attacks have come from Morales supporters.
According to Alanes, the hostility is rooted in Morales’ four administrations from 2006 to 2019. During that time, systematic and growing smear campaigns against the press were organized. In 2016, then-Presidency Minister Juan Ramón Quintana commissioned an 80-minute documentary titled The Cartel of Lies, containing attacks on independent press organizations.
The intimidation strategy intensified after 2016, when Morales lost a referendum on the possibility of indefinite reelection. “He blamed that defeat on the media,” Alanes said. It was then that the so-called “digital warriors” appeared—state employees organized to attack opponents and journalists on social media, she added.
Beyond physical and verbal violence, the Bolivian press also faces structural economic pressures. Peñaranda described a “perverse system of rewards and punishment with the allocation of state money to media outlets” through selective distribution of official advertising.
What to expect from the elections
The outlook for the elections is troubling. For now, Morales supporters are campaigning for voters to cast null ballots with his name written on them, an option some consider democratic and nonviolent. The situation, however, remains unpredictable. “In 2019, the violence flared up after the elections, not before,” Romano said.
With no institutional guarantees, the protection of Bolivian journalists largely depends on mobilization within the profession. Journalists’ associations have submitted detailed reports to the United Nations and Inter-American Commission on Human Rights’ special rapporteurs, documenting the escalation of violence and systemic impunity.
“The way journalist organizations defend their colleagues is a positive thing,” Peñaranda said. “Some people say, ‘Oh, but it’s just something poetic, a statement.’ But it works, because it is also a form of protection.”
As uncertainty continues, Alanes issued a clear warning to colleagues: work with safety equipment and maintain a safe distance to avoid danger.
“Violence could intensify,” she said. “From our associations, we recommend responsible work, with caution, and the conviction that no coverage is worth a life.”
