(FLIP/IFEX) – On 6 January 2006, radio journalist Antonio Colmenares received a death threat after reading a military press release on-air. The unidentified aggressor, having taken offence at the announcement, arrived at Colmenares’ place of work, the radio station “La Poderosa”, where he insulted the journalist and issued a death threat. The incident occurred in […]
(FLIP/IFEX) – On 6 January 2006, radio journalist Antonio Colmenares received a death threat after reading a military press release on-air. The unidentified aggressor, having taken offence at the announcement, arrived at Colmenares’ place of work, the radio station “La Poderosa”, where he insulted the journalist and issued a death threat.
The incident occurred in the municipality of Pitalito, in the southern Colombian department of Huila. The day before, during a news broadcast the journalist had read an official communiqué regarding a raid during which stolen goods had been found and a suspect captured. The suspect, upon being released a few hours after the news broadcast, was the individual who approached the station to rebuke the journalist for having tainted his reputation.
The journalist explained that he had merely read a press release issued by the army, and thus it was from that source that the aggrieved individual should seek an explanation. He added that the station’s microphones were available to the individual if he wished to respond to the information released by the army.
The unidentified individual responded to Colmenares in a threatening tone: “Journalists are a bunch of sons of bitches; until one of them is killed in Pitalito they are not going to stop screwing with us.” Later he gestured with his index finger and added, “You’re going to die, you son of a bitch, for talking such garbage.”
Colonel Martín Eduardo Galindo, commander of the Magdalena army battalion based in Pitalito, informed FLIP that the attorney general, the Department of Security (Departamento Administrativo de Seguridad, DAS) and the police had all been informed of the incident and they expected to capture the suspect within days. He added that this was an isolated incident involving a citizen angered by a news report that affected him personally. Nonetheless, the colonel indicated that the aggression would be tolerated.
Colmenares is not the first journalist in this municipality to be threatened. In July 2005, journalist Rodrigo Rojas was threatened by unidentified individuals on a motorcycle who accosted him, together with a colleague who was accompanying him. At the time, Rojas was investigating certain irregularities in the administration of the municipal government.
Threatening a journalist violates press freedom. FLIP holds that journalists reporting in an impartial and truthful manner are not responsible for the official information that they transmit, even when, for whatever reason, they are unable to corroborate the information. FLIP therefore reiterates the recommendations contained in its “Manual of self-protection for journalists in the Colombian conflict.”
Finally, FLIP requests that the authorities investigate this incident and that they provide protection to Colmenares, in order to help guarantee the unfettered functioning of journalism in this region of the country.
