(IAPA/IFEX) – The following is a 2 July 2002 IAPA press release: IAPA protests murder of journalist in Colombia Continuation of legal proceedings in other cases hailed MIAMI, Florida (July 2, 2002)-The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) today expressed its repudiation of the murder of radio journalist Efraín Alberto Varela Noriega in Colombia and called […]
(IAPA/IFEX) – The following is a 2 July 2002 IAPA press release:
IAPA protests murder of journalist in Colombia
Continuation of legal proceedings in other cases hailed
MIAMI, Florida (July 2, 2002)-The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) today expressed its repudiation of the murder of radio journalist Efraín Alberto Varela Noriega in Colombia and called on the authorities to take immediate action to ensure those responsible are brought to justice.
Varela, owner and director of Radio Meridiano 70 radio station in Arauca province, on the Venezuelan border 280 miles northeast of Bogotá, the Colombian capital, was killed on Friday, June 28, reportedly by paramilitaries who forced him out of the car he and his family were traveling in and shot him several times.
Varela, 52, had previously received death threats. He was a lawyer and anchored the program “La Actualidad Informativa” (The Latest News), in which he commented on political affairs, the paramilitaries and the guerrilla movement in Arauca province, regarded as one of the most violence-stricken in Colombia.
Protesting the murder, the chairman of IAPA’s Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information, Rafael Molina, declared that “in Colombia those who resort to violence continue attempting to impose their will by force; violating human rights and curtailing freedom of expression because they have failed to convince their fellow citizens using reasoned debate.”
Molina, editor of the Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic news magazine Ahora, added that “as we have argued before, for democracy to be sustained in Colombia there have to be guarantees for the practice of journalism and an end to the impunity enjoyed by those who murder journalists.”
Molina contrasted this impunity with the June 20 ruling by the Valledupar High Court in the northern province of Cesar overturning the local criminal court ‘s acquittal of the man charged with being the mastermind of the murder of another journalist, Amparo Leonor Jiménez.
The higher court sentenced Libardo Prada Bayona to more than 37 years’ imprisonment for the murder committed on August 11, 1998. Jiménez was a television news correspondent and local head of Redepaz, a national non-governmental organization promoting a peaceful end to the armed conflict in Colombia.
“We are delighted at the court ruling in this case, on which we had made presentations in March urging the authorities to take a close look at the legal proceedings and promptly appeal the acquittal,” Molina said. “This is a clear demonstration that justice can prevail in Colombia.”
Molina noted that Varela was the fifth journalist to be murdered in Colombia since October 2001. The others are Alvaro Alonso Escobar, killed on December 23, 2001; Orlando Sierra Hernández, February 2, 2002; Juan Carlos Gomez Díaz, April 3, 2002, and Héctor Sandoval, April 12, 2002.
