Miami (December 18, 2009)–The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) today expressed outrage at the murder of a Colombian journalist and called on the authorities there to begin an immediate investigation to identify the responsible individuals and bring them to justice.
On December 15 at 10:20 p.m. Harold Rivas Quevedo, host of the program “Comuna Libre” (Free Town) on Canal CNC Bugavision in Valle del Cauca, was shot five times on the premises of a funeral parlor that he also managed.
IAPA President Alejandro Aguirre, managing editor of the Miami, Florida, Spanish-language newspaper Diario Las Américas, declared, “We regret that Colombia is again making the news with such a concerning issue as the murder of journalists. We trust that the authorities will arrest the individuals responsible soon so that this crime does not go unpunished.”
A colleague of Rivas’s, Javier Gil, who was with him moments before the murder, told the IAPA’s Rapid Response Unit in Colombia that Rivas "left the TV station that night and went directly to the funeral parlor where a masked hitman shot him to death.”
Rivas, who worked as a sports commentator until a year ago at the Voces de Occidente radio station, had for the last four months hosted the TV program that raised various issues, including some on local politics and community leaders.
The chairman of the IAPA’s Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information, Robert Rivard, editor of the San Antonio Express-News, Texas, added, “We hope that this country, which for years suffered violence that left numerous journalists dead, will soon return to the two-year reduction we had seen in these crimes.”
The Valle del Cauca police chief told the IAPA that the motives for Rivas’ murder were not yet known, although Rivas’ boss at the television station, Héctor Valverde, does not think it had to do with his work as a journalist.
A relative of Rivas, who asked not to be identified, told the Rapid Response Unit that a formal complaint had been registered with the local state attorney’s office because Rivas had mentioned he was having difficulties.
During its General Assembly in Argentina last month the IAPA called attention to the fact that for the previous 20-month period there were no reports of journalists being murdered in Colombia tied to their professions. The 2009 murder of Rivas is added to those in Colombia of José Everardo Aguilar on April 24 and of Diego Rojas Velásquez on September 22, committed in Cauca and Caldas provinces, respectively.
The number of murders of journalists in the Americas so far this year is 22 – 10 in Mexico, three in Colombia, three in Honduras, two in Guatemala and one each in Brazil, El Salvador, Paraguay and Venezuela.
