Day of the Journalist: Colombia's journalists need more protection [View all]
August 3, 2018
As Colombia prepares to mark “Day of the Journalist” tomorrow, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) deplores the increasingly dangerous environment for media personnel in this Caribbean and Andean country, where the past month has seen a disturbing surge in threats and two journalists were murdered yesterday.
Yesterday’s victims, local newspaper editor Jairo Alberto Calderón Plazas and local radio host Valentín Rúa Tezada, were slain in separate shooting attacks in the western Cauca Valley.
The threats and deadly violence have come at a time of marked political polarization during the transition from outgoing President Juan Manuel Santos to President-elect Iván Duque, who will take office on 7 August. There has been a surge in attacks and intimidation attempts by the paramilitary armed groups still present in many parts of Colombia, which have stepped up their harassment of human rights defenders, union leaders and journalists regarded as problematic.
Jineth Bedoya, a well-known journalist who is deputy editor of the daily El Tiempo, and journalists with La Silla Vacía, a news website,were among those on a hit-list signed by a far-right paramilitary group called the Bloque Central de Las Águilas Negras that was circulated on 14 July.
More:
https://rsf.org/en/news/day-journalist-colombias-journalists-need-more-protection
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