(FLIP/IFEX) – Three new instances of violation of freedom of the press occurred in Barrancabermeja during the second week of March 2006. Two journalists and a newspaper lay-out artist join the list of those recently subjected to such violations in Santander Department. Journalist Edison Núñez, of the local Barrancabermeja television station Enlace 10, informed FLIP […]
(FLIP/IFEX) – Three new instances of violation of freedom of the press occurred in Barrancabermeja during the second week of March 2006. Two journalists and a newspaper lay-out artist join the list of those recently subjected to such violations in Santander Department.
Journalist Edison Núñez, of the local Barrancabermeja television station Enlace 10, informed FLIP that he received a letter on 7 March containing a death threat. The threat was apparently in retaliation for his having reported on the demobilisation of paramilitary groups in the region.
The letter read: “We wish to request that you cease your inquiries into the military’s strategy toward paramilitary groups; if you do not, we intend to follow through on our death threat, now that you have become someone we are keeping an eye on you.”
Speaking with FLIP, Mónica Arcella, the director of the station, indicated that the channel had framed their coverage of the subject of demobilisation through the analysis provided by civilian experts. She added that Núñez is not even in charge of the coverage of that topic.
The chief of the Barrancabermeja First District Police, Mayor Óscar Mora, informed FLIP that the police are taking the necessary steps to identify the authors of the threat.
According to information given to FLIP by Diro César González, director of the newspaper “La Tarde de Barrancabermeja”, on 3 March the youngest sister of that newspaper’s lay-out artist, Gladys Villamizar Rodríguez, was abducted by unknown assailants at the exit of her school.
The assailants told the youth that she should convey a message to her sister: “Tell her to quit working for that son-of-a-bitch newspaper.”
The girl eventually managed to escape her captors, and was found unharmed on 4 March on the Barrancabermeja – Bucaramanga highway. The lay-out artist and her sister have since fled the region.
González has similarly kept his distance from Barrancabermeja since January, after he and his wife, Tatiana Sánchez, were threatened – apparently by a regionally-based paramilitary group (see IFEX alert of 23 January 2006). Far from the city, and with great difficulty, the González family has nonetheless managed to continue publishing the newspaper.
Journalist Marcos Perales, director of the weekly “Portada”, informed FLIP that he had received a new e-mail message that began by condemning the recent threats to which he had been subject, but then went on to justify them, saying: “Now we are beginning to realize how these threats might be useful in order to straighten you out . . . Too bad that a journalist would prostitute himself for a few dollars. Be careful.”
FLIP condemns this series of threats against the two journalists and the lay-out artist, and reiterates its concern over the state of freedom of the press in Barrancabermeja.
FLIP urges the government of Colombia and local authorities to investigate these cases, and also to provide media workers with adequate protection as was agreed upon in the 9 February meeting with Vice-President Francisco Santos.
