(RSF/IFEX) – RSF has voiced concern that news producer Daniel Coronell was forced to flee Colombia on 14 August 2005, following months of anonymous threats. Coronell is the producer of the “Noticias Uno” television news programme on Canal Uno in Bogotá and a reporter for the magazine “Semana”. “Coronell is a respected journalist and well-known […]
(RSF/IFEX) – RSF has voiced concern that news producer Daniel Coronell was forced to flee Colombia on 14 August 2005, following months of anonymous threats. Coronell is the producer of the “Noticias Uno” television news programme on Canal Uno in Bogotá and a reporter for the magazine “Semana”.
“Coronell is a respected journalist and well-known critic of the government and his departure represents a serious blow to the right to information in Colombia,” the organisation said.
A wave of anonymous phone and e-mail threats against Coronell had stepped up in April, with some of the threats targeting his six-year-old daughter. In May, he received two funeral wreaths bearing the names of his wife and daughter, as well as his own name.
In an interview with the daily “El Tiempo”, Coronell said he decided to leave the country after learning that his daughter was going to the same school as the son of former parliamentarian Carlos Nader Simmonds, whom he had named in June as the source of threats against him.
“I prefer to go than to stay silent,” he said in the interview.
Coronell is the seventh journalist to be forced to flee from his home since the start of the year.
