New York, April 12, 2002—Two members of a television news crew were shot and killed while covering fighting on Thursday between the Colombian army and leftist rebels, CPJ has learned. Héctor Sandoval, a cameraman with RCN Televisión, died early today. Wálter López, the crew’s driver, died on Thursday, said Rocío Arias, executive producer of RCN…
Bogotá, April 11, 2002—A Colombian television reporter received a death threat last week after reporting extensively on the country’s left-wing guerrilla movement, CPJ has learned. Carlos José Lajud works for the Bogotá station Citytv. On April 4, Lajud received a letter at the Citytv offices. “Our sincere condolences…for the death of Carlos Lajud,” read the…
Bogotá, April 9, 2002 — The body of Juan Carlos Gómez, an intern at a radio station in northern Colombia, was found floating in the Magdalena River on April 3, CPJ has learned. Authorities said he had been beaten to death. Gómez, 23, began working as an intern at La Voz de Aguachica (The Voice…
New York, March 29, 2002—Newspaper columnist Fernando Garavito recently fled Colombia after a series of events that made him fear for his life, CPJ has learned. Garavito, who writes a Sunday column for the Bogotá-based newspaper El Espectador, left Colombia for the United States on March 21 and has no plans to return. In a…
IN THE WAKE of September 11, 2001, journalists around the world faced a press freedom crisis that was truly global in scope. In the first days and weeks after the terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C., governments across the globe–in China, Benin, the Palestinian Authority Territories, and the United States–took actions to…
AGAINST A BACKDROP OF TROUBLED ECONOMIES AND DEMOCRACIES, the Americas saw an increase in violent and verbal attacks against journalists during 2001. The number of journalists murdered in the region has grown, with 11 killed for their work in 2001, compared to seven in 2000 and six in 1999. The violence is also occurring in…
The Colombian press remained in the cross fire of an escalating, decades-old civil conflict pitting two major leftist guerrilla groups against the Colombian army and right-wing paramilitary forces. While peace negotiations slowly moved forward at the beginning of 2002, the conflict continued to take a deadly toll on journalists and sent many into hiding. At…
Bogotá, March 11, 2002— Seven journalists who have covered high-profile criminal investigations for major Colombian media organizations were threatened with death and given three days to leave the country. A message typed on a card used to request a Catholic prayer for the dead accused the journalists of being “gossipy sons-of-bitches who with their lies…
Bogotá, March 7, 2002—Leftist guerrillas forced a radio station to shut down after accusing it of serving government interests. Onda Zero, based in the southern Colombian town of Acevedo, Huila Department, stopped broadcasting on the evening of February 28, when some 10 fighters from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) threatened to blow up…
New York, January 3, 2002–A total of 37 journalists were killed worldwide as a direct result of their work in 2001, a sharp increase from 2000 when 24 were killed, according to CPJ research. At least 25 were murdered, almost all with impunity. The dramatic rise is mainly due to the war in Afghanistan, where…