In response to a story in the Miami daily El Nuevo Herald that Colombian journalists’ e-mails and phone calls with international human rights and press freedom groups, including the Committee to Protect Journalists, were monitored by Colombian national intelligence, we issued the following statement today…
New York, April 27, 2009–Veteran Colombian radio journalist José Everardo Aguilar, known for his harsh criticism of local corruption, was gunned down inside his home in southwestern Cauca province on Friday night. The Committee to Protect Journalists today called on Colombian authorities to thoroughly investigate Aguilar’s killing and bring all those responsible to justice
Two individuals, who identified themselves as members of the far-right paramilitary group United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), shot Colombian journalist Gustavo Adolfo Valencia Ayala inside his home in the eastern city of Popayán on March 16, 2009, according to local news reports. The journalist, who was injured but is in stable condition, said he…
Daniel Coronell’s name didn’t come up in a hearing this week on Capitol Hill, even though CPJ had just learned that a Colombian court had ordered the arrest of the respected Canal Uno TV reporter and Semana magazine columnist over his work. Coronell is one of many journalists and human rights monitors who’ve lately been…
New York, March 25, 2009–A court in Colombia has issued an arrest warrant for prominent journalist Daniel Coronell for contempt of court after he failed to correct for a second time a story linking a local businessman to drug trafficking, the Committee to Protect Journalists learned today. CPJ calls on the judge to withdraw the…
Combating impunity has been a long and difficult process, full of obstacles and problems. At the national level it has not been easy, so much of our work is carried out using the supranational tools that we helped develop. They began taking shape through international intergovernmental declarations, in conclusions reached by international legislative and judicial…
CPJ’s Impunity Index spotlights countrieswhere journalists are slain and killers go free New York, March 23, 2009 — The already murderous conditions for the press in Sri Lanka and Pakistan deteriorated further in the past year, the Committee to Protect Journalists has found in its newly updated Impunity Index, a list of countries where journalists…
Deadly violence in Colombia eased for the second consecutive year as no journalists were killed in direct relation to their work. Colombian authorities cited increased security throughout the country as the cause for the recent decline in news media deaths, but journalists said widespread self-censorship had made the press less of a target. Even so,…