Foundation for Press Freedom – FLIP

The Criminal Chamber of the Colombian Supreme Court announced that it would not pursue criminal defamation charges against a journalist who had written opinion columns critical of the Court.

The Supreme Court’s criminal chamber will file a criminal defamation suit against journalist Cecilia Orozco for her column questioning the court’s decisions.

What happened to Langlois should serve as an opportunity to reflect on the safety issues that journalists covering armed conflict must deal with regularly in Colombia.

UPDATE: The president of IFEX member Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR), Nabeel Rajab, was re-arrested and sentenced to three years in prison on 16 August. Many other human rights defenders remain in prison, including BCHR’s founder Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja, and his daughter, Zainab Al-Khawaja.

Those responsible for the attack have not been identified yet but Londoño had been receiving threats from the FARC.

Roméo Langlois, a correspondent for the France 24 television station and the newspaper Le Figaro, was accompanying an army and police operation against FARC coca laboratories as part of his work on a documentary on drug trafficking when he went missing.

The La Voz de la Tierra station director said that the threats against Jesús Antonio Pareja may have been linked to a recent report on land restitution.

“Argemiro Cárdenas Agudelo was in the Metro Radio offices when he received a phone call and arranged a meeting with the caller. He was on his way to meet this person when he was shot and killed,” said the local police chief.