90% drop in murders of journalists in Colombia – Santos

President Juan Manuel Santos declared that in the last eight months the number of murders of journalists in Colombia had fallen by 90%. “We have dropped 46% in the number of murders overall, the number of massacres has gone down by 80%, abductions 91% and murders of journalists 90%,” Santos said in reiterating his government’s commitment to protect press freedom. He said the police were investigating the murder this year of a journalist and another one committed in 2009. “One homicide is too much for us. If only it was not even that of one journalist,” Santos added. He disclosed that in Colombia there are 170 journalists being given some form of protection. “And people ask are there so many journalists being threatened? The answer is: possibly not, but we prefer to err by excess than to act for mere effect,” he explained. Santos confirmed his commitment to press freedom during a speech at the General Assembly of the Inter American Press Association in Mexico, the Casa de Nariño presidential office reported. He declared that “every democracy needs freedom of expression and needs freedom of the press this is another of the commitments that we have in Colombia.” He went on to say that freedom of expression has been a tradition in Colombia, which will continue to observe it now and in the future.