(APG/IFEX) – APG condemns the attacks on “Noti-7” news programme editors and reporters, in two operations which appear to have been carried out by organized crime gangs in retaliation for reports and investigations on drug trafficking. “Noti-7” is broadcast nationally on channel 7. On 4 August 2006, several unidentified armed men travelling on two motorcycles […]
(APG/IFEX) – APG condemns the attacks on “Noti-7” news programme editors and reporters, in two operations which appear to have been carried out by organized crime gangs in retaliation for reports and investigations on drug trafficking. “Noti-7” is broadcast nationally on channel 7.
On 4 August 2006, several unidentified armed men travelling on two motorcycles and in a car, stopped a news team in the Bosques de San Nocolás neighbourhood, in Mixco, a town to the west of the capital.
Journalist Carlos Aquino and photographer Marvin Pérez were robbed of the vehicle and their film equipment. The vehicle was abandoned two days later, minus the equipment and the footage of an investigation on violence in the region, according to police.
On 12 June, another “Noti-7” news unit was attacked and its driver, Mario Cruz, who was alone at the time, was kidnapped by four men in a southwestern sector of the capital; they threatened him with guns and questioned him for an hour-and-a-half before letting him go.
Given the way in which both attacks were carried out, “Noti-7” representatives believe they were committed by organized crime gangs, in retaliation for “Noti-7” reporting on the violence and drug trafficking in the country.
In addition to the above-mentioned actions threatening the news programme, journalist Jairo Gamaliel Cholotío Corea, 34, was shot and killed in front of El Sagrado Corazón de Jesús church on 4 August in Zone 8 of the capital, by a criminal robbing him of his cell phone. Cholotío worked as a photographer for the Centre for Folklore Studies at the University of San Carlos.
