(RSF/IFEX) – RSF has voiced concern about the threat to press freedom posed by restrictions on media coverage of talks between the government and leaders of the paramilitary United Self Defence Groups of Colombia (Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia, AUC). The talks are scheduled to open on 1 July 2004 in Tierralta, Córdoba region, northwestern Colombia. […]
(RSF/IFEX) – RSF has voiced concern about the threat to press freedom posed by restrictions on media coverage of talks between the government and leaders of the paramilitary United Self Defence Groups of Colombia (Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia, AUC). The talks are scheduled to open on 1 July 2004 in Tierralta, Córdoba region, northwestern Colombia.
“The three-day deadline for journalists to seek accreditation, starting from 15 June, for talks expected to last six months is excessively short,” said RSF.
“It will penalise foreign press correspondents in particular, who will only learn of the restrictions after the talks have started,” the organisation said in a letter to High Commissioner for Peace Luis Carlos Restrepo.
“Forcing the press to get accreditation in Bogotá will also likely disadvantage provincial publications that want to cover the event but do not have representatives in the capital,” RSF added.
“While accepting the need for journalists travelling to the area to be accredited, the deadline that has been set is at best pointless and at worst a danger for press freedom,” the organisation added.
“We therefore ask you to do away with the time limit for accreditation,” the organisation asked the high commissioner. “Your desire not to turn the negotiations into a ‘show’ should not lead you to infringe on press freedom,” RSF concluded.
In a 15 June statement issued by the press department of the Office of the High Commissioner for Peace, media outlets were told that they had until 18 June to put in requests for accreditation, in which they must name the journalists they intended to send to Tierralta.
The statement also noted that accreditation had to be picked up at the press service office in Bogotá between 24 and 25 June. The press department stressed that media outlets failing to comply with the procedure “would not enter the area in question.”
When contacted by RSF, the press department indicated that there was some room for flexibility. A request that arrived on 15 July would be looked at and would not immediately be rejected, the department said. It would also be possible for media outlets to obtain accreditation for a journalist who would be replacing another journalist who had originally received accreditation. Questioned about the reasons for a three-day deadline, the press department explained, “In Colombia people always wait until the last moment to do anything, so we had to set a deadline.”
On 16 May, Restrepo said the peace talks process would be serious and there would be no “media circus,” in reference to negotiations held from 1998 to 2002 by President Andrés Pastrana with the guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia, FARC). The talks were held in an area to which there was unrestricted access.
