An unknown assailant fatally shot 25-year-old journalist Flor Alba Núñez Vargas in southwest Colombia on September 10.
Celebrating its 15th anniversary this August, the Protection Program for Journalists in Colombia (the oldest mechanism of its kind in Latin America) is at a “critical moment,” according to organizations defending freedom of expression. Among the main problems affecting the stability of the program are internal corruption scandals and the lack of financial resources.
As part of the campaign ‘Journalism at Risk’ (‘Periodismo en Riesgo’), the Free Press Foundation (FLIP for its acronym in Spanish) has launched the J-Pro project, which seeks to explain and evaluate the policies established by the governments of Colombia and Mexico for protection of journalists at risk.
Former Colombian legislator and politician Ferney Tapasco has been sentenced to 36 years in prison for being the mastermind of the 2002 murder of La Patria deputy editor Orlando Sierra who was killed because of his work.
The Office of the Attorney General of Colombia ruled that the August 13, 1999 murder of journalist Jaime Garzón cannot be characterized as a crime against humanity.
The Attorney General of Colombia, Eduardo Montealegre, ordered the recapture of former paramilitary Alejandro Cárdenas Orozco, alias 'JJ', linked to the kidnapping, torture and rape of journalist Jineth Bedoya Lima, reported Semana.
A Colombian government agency that fights unfair competition and protects consumers’ rights denied a request from the main Colombian newspapers seeking to stop a news website aggregator from using their content.
The assassination of two Colombian journalists in less than one month has again alarmed the country’s press, which has not forgotten the darker years when – due to drug trafficking and other criminal groups – the number of journalists killed because of their work was high.
The conviction that the Supreme Court of Colombia issued against the former director of the defunct Administrative Department of Security (DAS, by its Spanish acronym), María del Pilar Hurtado, and former Secretary General of the Presidency in the administration of Álvaro Uribe, Bernardo Moreno Villegas, implies a breakthrough in the investigation of cases related to violations of freedom of the press in the country, according to some organizations.
Feb. 17 was a day like any other for Yohir Akerman, former columnist for El Colombiano, until he discovered – while flipping through the pages of the paper – that he had been fired. The reason: claiming that “god was wrong” to reject homosexuality in the Bible in one of his columns.
Advocates are reporting that criminal gangs and paramilitary groups in Colombia, one of the most dangerous Latin American countries for journalists, have been issuing death threats for journalists and human rights defenders for the past two months. Media and government representatives have called for investigation to find the sources behind these threats.
Paraguay, Brazil and Mexico placed in the top 20 deadliest countries for journalists in 2014, according to a special year-end report by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).