In this period once again a number of journalists were murdered. José Everardo Aguilar, aged 72, correspondent of Radio Súper and reporter for Bolívar Estéreo radio in the town of Patía, Cauca province, was killed on April 24 by a hitman in his home for reasons linked to his work as a journalist. Five months later Diego Rojas Velásquez, a reporter with Supía TV channel in Caldas province was killed; the motive for his murder is still under investigation.
Threats to and obstruction of the work of journalists continue to be the main factors of intimidation that is causing a resort to self-censorship. The Foundation for Freedom of the Press reported a total of 69 violations of press freedom during these last six months.
In the view of reporters and some columnists, stigmatization and pronouncements by officials, members of the government and its advisors have become means to thwart exposure of corruption. Illegal telephone wiretapping reported in the previous period carried out by the Administrative Security Department (DAS), an agency of the Presidency, against journalists, Supreme Court justices and members of the opposition continued to be a matter of concern for the effects they have on keeping the identity of sources confidential and on the safety of reporters.
A warrant was issued for the arrest of two journalists on contempt charges, on the grounds that they had failed to satisfactorily publish corrections on certain libel cases. Rulings by the Constitutional Court that extended the truth as a defense in libel cases and overturned the contempt allegation resulted in the editors of the magazines Semana and Cambio, Alejandro Santos and Rodrigo Pardo, respectively, not having to publish corrections for a second time under threat of being put in jail.
On the legislative front, the Colombian Newspaper Association, Andiarios, managed to have a bill on Freedom of Opinion with Responsibility withdrawn. The bill had declared that News media shall be responsible for setting up the mechanisms that ensure in their staff lists the accuracy of the listings and therefore they shall be jointly responsible in case of violation of this precept.
However, there are currently before Congress at least seven bills seeking to regulate and impose obligations and prohibitions on the news media under general headings regarding minors, rejection of discrimination, ensuring that the truth is told, and cultural values. There is also a series of bills that would restrict advertising in newspapers and other media outlets.
In the battle against impunity developments have included a conviction for the murder of journalist Elacio Miurillo Mosquera, a decision to question a former official of the National Security Department (DAS) in the Jaime Garzíon case, and a call by the Inspector Generals Office to the Attorney Generals Office to cite two politicians as allegedly responsible for the murder of La Patria managing editor Orlando Sierra. Also regarded as progress was testimony given by former paramilitary chiefs to help solve a countless number of homicides.
Nevertheless, these six months have been poor in that 20 investigations into crimes against journalists have remained suspended, shelved or have failed to move ahead.
The most relevant developments during the period:
On March 17 the Criminal Division of the Quibdó Specialized Criminal Court Circuit in Chocó province sentenced Franklin Isnel Diaz Mosquera, a.k.a. Juancho, to 34 years in prison as one of those who murdered Elacio Murillo Mosquera, a journalist with the weekly Chocó 7 días, on January 10, 2007 in Istmina, Chocó.
The Council of State ordered La Naci[on to pay reparations of approximately $250,000 to the family of Henry Rojas Monje, correspondent of El Tiempo murdered in Arauca on December 28, 1991. The states responsibility, the order says, is based on the fact that the crime was committed by two soldiers in the National Army.
A warrant was issued for the arrest of two journalists on contempt charges, on the basis that they were held not to have satisfactorily complied with an order to publish corrections to certain libel cases reports. On March 18 a court in Granada, Meta province, ordered the arrest of Daniel Coronel, director of Noticias UNO television channel, for having refused to issue a second correction concerning a lawsuit brought by Reinel Gaitán Tangarife, whom the channel linked to drug trafficking.
On March 25 the Bogotá Criminal Court for the second time ordered the detention for three days of the editor of the magazine Semana, Alejandro Santos, on the grounds that he had failed to comply with a second order to issue a correction by the Bogotá High Court.
In late March the authorities foiled an attempt on the life of Enrique Santos Calderón, IAPA president and contents editor of the Bogotá newspaper El Tiempo. Ten guerrillas belonging to the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC) movement were arrested.
On April 24 the murder occurred of José Everardo Aguilar, correspondent of Radio Súper in the town of Patia, Cauca province. A hitman turned up at his home with the excuse of delivering some documents to him and shot him six times. Aguilar had been reporting on political matters and frequently exposed corruption. Colombias President Alvaro Uribe offered a 50 million peso reward for information about those responsible for the murder. This was the first homicide for reasons of the victims work as a journalist to occur in Colombia in nearly two years. On July 10 police announced the arrest of Arley Manquillo Rivera, the alleged hitman, a member of the criminal gang known as Los Rastrojos (The Left-Overs), who was said to have been hired to kill Aguilar for some $7,000.
On April 30 the IAPA expressed regret at the decision of the Supreme Court not to admit the petition for a review of the criminal proceedings in the case of the April 16, 1998 murder of journalist Nelson Carvajal Carvajal in Pitalito, Huila province.
In July two important decisions were taken by the Constitutional Court:
The Court declared as unconstitutional clause 1 of Article 224 of the Penal Code, meaning that journalists and news media no longer have to face criminal charges for accurate information they divulge about persons who have been acquitted.
The Administrative Litigation Court in Cundinamarca gave the federal government 48 hours to implement an appropriate security arrangement for a journalist at risk. The decision concerned Claudia Julieta Suárez, who in October 2007 challenged the Interior Ministrys Program for the Protection of Journalists, saying that its security measures had been suspended despite the dangers she faced.
Acting Attorney General Guillermo Mendoza Diago promised the IAPA to investigate 16 murders whose cases are suspended in various public prosecutors offices around the country.
In August Colombian Inspector General Alejandro Ordoñez asked the Attorney Generals Office to cite former Caldas congressman Caldas Ferney Tapasco and his son, former member of the House of Representatives Dickson Ferney Tapasco, as masterminds in the investigation into the January 30, 2002 murder of Orlando Sierra.
In another development, according to a report by the Attorney Generals Office, former paramilitary Jorge Enrique Ríos confessed to the murder of journalist Flavio Iván Bedoya Sarria (on April 27, 2009), correspondent of the weekly Voz in Tumaco, Nariño province.
In September the Constitutional Court overturned the ruling of the Cali High Court that had ordered the newspaper El País there to issue a correction to the column titled La Herencia de Angelino (Angelinos Inheritance), published on April 18, 2008 and written by Diego Martínez Lloreda, about the former governor Angelino Garzón.
One of the important aspects of the Courts decision is that it repeats that columnists opinions are not the responsibility of a newspapers executives but of the columnist himself or herself.
On September 22 Diego Rojas Velásquez, a journalist with Supía TV in Caldas province was murdered. The reasons for his death remain unknown. He had been working as a reporter and cameraman for the television channel for the previous two months. He covered the sports, society and community beats. He had 30 years experience in journalism.
In October, the Attorney Generals Office called in José Miguel Narváez, former deputy chief of the Security Department (DAS) to ask him about his alleged participation in the murder of journalist Jaime Garzón in Bogotá on August 13, 1999. A man with the alias El Iguano, a demobilized member of the paramilitary movement Catatumbo Bloc of the United Self-Defenses of Colombia said in testimony that the former deputy national chief of the Security Department (DAS), José Miguel Narváez, had ordered paramilitary chief Carlos Castaño Gil to kill Garzón.
Some days later another former paramilitary, Freddy Rendón Herrera, a.k.a. El alemán (The German), said the order had come from paramilitary chief Carlos Castaño in conjunction with an Army general who a few days earlier had visited him. This latter testimony was the second by a paramilitary chief to link members of the Army with Garzóns murder. Heber Veloza, a.k.a. HH, had earlier done so.
A controversy was sparked by the decision of the newspaper El Tiempo to fire columnist Claudia López for having written a column in which she criticized news coverage by the paper of a over alleged wrongdoing by government officials in the Agriculture Ministrys program titled Agro Ingreso Seguro (Secure Agricultural Revenue).
In an editorial the newspaper explained that this was a considered decision, was not in any way censorship and that it was regarded as unacceptable to call into question the ethical principles and the honor of the journalists who work in this newspaper. It said that another media outlet in the same publishing house, the magazine Cambio, had uncovered the scandal in question.
Some months earlier another controversy had arisen over the decision of the newspaper El Colombiano to cancel from its op-ed pages columnist and journalistic ethics expert Javier Darío Restrepo, who in his last column declared that his view of political matters did not coincide with those of the newspaper. The paper announced that the decision to drop Restrepo had to do with a reorganization and renovation in the op-ed pages.
According to information from military intelligence there had been a plot by guerrillas belonging to the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC) to assassinate Herlin Hoyos, director of the program Las voces del secuestro (The Voices of Abduction), broadcast by Caracol radio and which for more than 15 years has given air space to families of people kidnapped by the Colombian guerrillas to send messages to their captive loved ones. Hoyos left the country for the sixth time.
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