(IPYS/IFEX) – At 8:00 a.m. (local time) on 7 December 2000, the journalists who were captured on the previous day by the ninth front of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia, FARC) guerrillas, were released. The journalists were kidnapped while they were on their way to cover an attack by […]
(IPYS/IFEX) – At 8:00 a.m. (local time) on 7 December 2000, the journalists who were captured on the previous day by the ninth front of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia, FARC) guerrillas, were released. The journalists were kidnapped while they were on their way to cover an attack by the guerrilla group on the municipality of Granada, in the department of Antioquia, in Colombia’s northwestern region.
Jesús Benavides, photojournalist for the daily “El Espectador”, informed IPYS that the guerrillas intercepted the group of journalists at 2:00 p.m. on Wednesday 6 December. The journalists were subsequently locked up in a house, near the checkpoint set up by the guerrillas.
Media workers who were held by the rebels were: Oscar Montoya, Óscar Álvarez and Alexander Cardona, from Caracol; Fernando Tabares, Sergio Goez and Pedro Pinto, from RCN; Yolanda Bedoya, Luis Fernando Marín and Gildardo Álvarez, from CM&; Diego Argáez, from Canal A; Luis Benavides, from “El Espectador”; and Miguel Jaramillo and his technical assistants, from the 7 o’clock news programme (Noticiero de las 7).
Some hours before the journalists were detained, on the afternoon of 6 December, the local police station of the municipality of Granada was the target of a FARC car bomb.
Benavides stated that on Thursday 7 December at 8:00 a.m., the group of journalists was released by the FARC, after having remained in the hands of the guerrilla group for eighteen hours.
The most serious threats against press freedom in Colombia stem from the internal conflict that is plaguing the country. The kidnapping of journalists, who are subsequently released with a message, has become a common occurrence.
Examples of this practice, which impedes the free exercise of journalism, are the kidnappings of reporter Jaime Horacio Arango and photographer Jesús Abad Colorado, from the Medellín daily “El Colombiano”. They were abducted in October while covering a National Liberation Army (Ejército de Liberacion Nacional, ELN) roadblock on the Medellín-Bogotá highway (see IFEX alert of 12 October 2000). That same month, and at the same location, RCN’s journalistic team was kidnapped (see IFEX alerts of 10 and 6 October 2000). In both cases, the press workers were released a few hours later, on condition that they take with them or read press releases aimed at the government and meant to influence public opinion.
