(FLIP/IFEX) – After threatening to kill the director of tourist newspaper “Primera Plana” and mistreating its watchman, a group of over 20 men stole between 15,000 and 18,000 copies of the newspaper on 8 March 2006. The incident occurred in Pereira, the capital of the Risaralda department in the central-west region of the country. At […]
(FLIP/IFEX) – After threatening to kill the director of tourist newspaper “Primera Plana” and mistreating its watchman, a group of over 20 men stole between 15,000 and 18,000 copies of the newspaper on 8 March 2006. The incident occurred in Pereira, the capital of the Risaralda department in the central-west region of the country.
At 11:00 a.m. (local time) between 20 and 30 men, some of them evidently armed, arrived at the parking lot where “Primera Plana” director Antonio Vargas Valbuena was guarding the copies of the final edition of the monthly publication. The men behaved in an intimidating manner, and threatened to kill him if he did not turn over the newspapers. They told him that former Risaralda governor Elsa Gladys Cifuentes Aranzazu, now a Senate candidate for the “Cambio Radical” party, had ordered them to collect the copies.
Vargas contacted the department’s current governor, Carlos Alberto Botero López, and the police, who immediately sent four officers who persuaded the assailants to desist. The assailants simply left the place.
At about 2:00 p.m., while the journalist was away having lunch and distributing some of the copies, four vehicles arrived at the newspaper parking lot. Again, over 20 men behaved menacingly, this time threatening the watchman, who refused to turn over the newspapers. The assailants shoved him out of the way, and stole the copies.
The March edition of “Primera Plana” contains an article entitled “Will corruption reach the Senate?”, sharply questioning Cifuentes’s track record while she was Risaralda’s former governor. Cifuentes was campaigning for a Senate seat in the 12 March elections.
Governor Botero told FLIP that according to Vargas, Cifuentes is behind the threats and the theft of the newspapers. Botero emphasised that when he received the call from Vargas, he contacted the authorities so they would go to the scene of the incident.
FLIP tried to contact Cifuentes, but one of her advisors stated that she was at a political meeting.
FLIP condemns the threats against Vargas and the theft of “Primera Plana” copies. It also urges the authorities to provide protection for the journalist and the newspaper, and investigate the evidence regarding who is behind these acts of aggression.
When public exposure of a fact is illegally restrained, the community is deprived of information essential for making decisions, all the more important during an electoral period.
