The controversial mayor of the eastern Bolivian city of Santa Cruz has stepped up his verbal attacks on the press. During a press conference on Saturday, Sept. 1, Mayor Percy Fernández Áñez threatened to kill the journalists for the newspaper El Deber, according to the website La Patria. The website also reported that the mayor accused El Deber of promoting his removal from office before the Municipal Council.
"We will take them down some day. That's my word as mayor of Santa Cruz. I don't know they'll end up six feet under or if they'll get no further than their home, but something is going to happen to them," Fernández said, according to El Deber. Despite the severity of the threat, the newspaper reported that this is not the first time the official has verbally or physically threatened El Deber or its journalists.
Reporters Without Borders denounced the threat on its website, saying, "All politicians are exposed to public criticism because of their jobs and they must take care not to respond either with hate speech or judicial reprisals as both pose a danger to freedom of information and media pluralism." The Bolivian National Press Association also "vehemently rejected" the threats, according to El Diario.
In 2010, Fernández threatened to shoot two journalists who asked questions about his plan to reorganize the city's public markets.
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.
