The office of Colombia’s Attorney General announced that it would no longer investigate the deaths of El Espectador journalists Julio Daniel Chaparro and Jorge Enrique Torres, who were killed 20 years ago while investigating a massacre, El Tiempo reports.
Colombian journalists nationwide plan to take to the streets May 3 for a “march of silence” against the growing wave of threats by paramilitary groups against journalists and human rights groups, El Espectador and CM& report.
Press freedom activists have asked the Colombian attorney general to classify the 1991 deaths of two journalists investigating a massacre as crimes against humanity, the Foundation for Press Freedom (FLIP) reports via IFEX.
In response to criticism from journalists and media outlets, the Colombian government said a proposed law that punishes officials who leak confidential information will not affect the media and that journalism issues have their own jurisdiction, El Tiempo reports.
Colombian journalists and media outlets are concerned that a newly proposed intelligence law would punish public officials who leak information to the press and lead to censorship, RCN Radio reports.
Continuing the wave of threats by paramilitary groups against Colombian journalists, a new pamphlet targets 11 community radio stations affiliated with the Cauca Regional Indigenous Council and 11 journalists from diverse media outlets, Reporters without Borders (RSF) reports.
A Colombian journalist was hit with two tear gas canisters as he covered student protests at a university in the capital city of Bogotá, while two regional media directors received death threats after one was attacked in a different protest, Periodistas en Español reports.
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) has filed a case against Colombia in the Inter-American Court of Human Rights for failing to provide justice and protection for journalist Luís Gonzalo “Richard” Vélez Restrepo, who was attacked by soldiers in 1996, while filming farmers protesting the destruction of coca crops. See reports in English by the IACHR and Colombia Reports.
Nine years after the assassination of the deputy editor of La Patria newspaper, Orlando Sierra, two influential Colombian politicians from the interior were accused of being the masterminds of his killing, and they were ordered imprisoned to prevent them from fleeing, RCN Radio reports.
Latin America is missing profitable opportunities to conserve its forests because bureaucracy and excessive paperwork are tying up the process, an 11-country investigation by 18 reporters in the region concludes. The report on carbon emissions trading presents the first product of a new collective investigative reporting project led by Latin American journalists.
Reporters without Borders (RSF) reports that it has received a copy of a new set of threats against journalists and human rights activists in Colombia from the Black Eagles paramilitary group, which for the last five years has engaged in acts of violence and intimidation against the press.
A journalist and a cameraman for the news show CM& on Colombia’s TV Canal 1 were attacked with rocks and sticks by people living in a mining zone in northeastern Colombia, while seeking interviews with locals about a Canadian mining company's decision to postpone a project, El Tiempo reports.