(RSF/IFEX) – On 18 July 2002, RSF deplored the murder of radio journalist Dennis Segundo Sánchez and said it was concerned about attempts to kill two other reporters. “The reason he was killed is not yet clear, but his death is part of the violence journalists are subjected to in Colombia,” said RSF Secretary-General Robert […]
(RSF/IFEX) – On 18 July 2002, RSF deplored the murder of radio journalist Dennis Segundo Sánchez and said it was concerned about attempts to kill two other reporters.
“The reason he was killed is not yet clear, but his death is part of the violence journalists are subjected to in Colombia,” said RSF Secretary-General Robert Ménard in a letter to Attorney General Luis Camilo Osorio, urging him to locate and punish those responsible. Five journalists have been killed in Colombia so far this year, Ménard noted.
RSF estimates that more than 95 per cent of murders in Colombia go unpunished. In 2001, 35 cases of murdered journalists were pending before the four judges of the government’s special human rights unit that deals with media workers’ murders. In 21 cases, no suspects have been arrested, either for lack of resources or because of the intimidation of judges, witnesses and lawyers.
“The plight of journalists will not improve unless the authorities do everything they can to fight impunity,” said Ménard.
Segundo Sánchez, of the radio station 95.5 Estereo in El Carmen de Bolivar, was murdered in the town on 17 July while at home with his wife. The local correspondent of the Cartagena daily “El Universal” told RSF that a gunman shot the journalist four times in the head before fleeing. No police investigation of the incident is said to have been launched.
Segundo Sánchez, one of the station’s veteran journalists, hosted a programme about the town’s public health policy. His friends said he had not been threatened prior to the attack. The station went off the air for 24 hours after he was killed.
In another incident, Rebeca Jaramillo and Breitner Bravo, presenters of a news programme on the local television station Notimar, in Buenaventura (in the eastern province of Valle del Cauca), escaped death on 15 July. Two motorcyclists blocked their car and opened fire on them after a funeral in the city’s La Independencia district. Jaramillo, who is three months pregnant, was hit by five bullets and Bravo by three. Both were hospitalised and then transferred to a private clinic in Cali, where they are now out of danger.
Local officials, who have arrested a suspect, said they knew of no previous threats against the two journalists. Preliminary indications are that the attack was connected to a personal matter unrelated to their work as journalists. Nevertheless, RSF insisted that a full and speedy inquiry be carried out and the results made public.
Bravo’s colleagues said he had received death threats from the paramilitary United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia (Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia, AUC). One Notimar journalist said that an armed man, thought to be an AUC member, had once prevented the two journalists’ programme from going on air. The television station was also threatened by local businessmen after the
programme reported on a racket in stolen goods.
According to the provincial daily “El Pais”, 11 journalists have been murdered in Buenaventura in recent years, including three in the last year.
