(IPYS/IFEX) – On 18 June 2008, the newspaper “Jornada” received an anonymous e-mail message accusing it of serving as a loudspeaker for the national government and of not presenting information according to the “people’s interests”. The message also conveyed a death threat against journalists Rocío Paredes and Walter Condorpusa, and accused them of not reporting […]
(IPYS/IFEX) – On 18 June 2008, the newspaper “Jornada” received an anonymous e-mail message accusing it of serving as a loudspeaker for the national government and of not presenting information according to the “people’s interests”. The message also conveyed a death threat against journalists Rocío Paredes and Walter Condorpusa, and accused them of not reporting in the interests of “the party” – understood in the region as referring to the terrorist group Sendero Luminoso. The incident took place in Huamanga, in the Ayacucho region, southeastern Peru.
The e-mail also accuses the journalists of not reporting impartially about the Nuevos Horizontes programme, an initiative involving a contingent of North American soldiers who have come to Ayacucho, officially for the purpose of performing “social work”.
The e-mail further asserts that the newspaper’s journalists are betraying the people with their reporting, and that “this betrayal will reach the party’s ears in order that it may retaliate.”
Finally, the e-mail warned that the named journalists will be the first to be “annihilated” during a strike planned for 8 and 9 July 2008.
