Threats against the media undermine democracy and the right to information. The state must prevent fear from becoming censorship.
Miami (November 9, 2026) — The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) strongly condemns threats of attacks against media outlets in Colombia and calls on authorities to take immediate, effective and sustained action to ensure the safety of journalists, media workers and news organizations’ facilities.
Warnings received over the weekend, which prompted the preventive evacuation of Caracol Televisión’s headquarters in Bogotá and led other media outlets, including Caracol Radio, to strengthen their security protocols, are a serious warning sign of the risks facing journalism in the country. According to press reports, warnings of possible attacks also targeted Canal RCN, heightening concerns about the safety of media outlets and their employees.
The IAPA President Carlos Jornet, Editorial Director of Argentina’s La Voz del Interior, stated: “Threats against media outlets are not merely attacks on journalists and news organizations. They are a direct assault on democracy and on the right of millions of citizens to receive free and independent information. No criminal organization or violent group can arrogate to itself the power to decide what gets published, what gets investigated or which voices are allowed to speak. The Colombian state has an inescapable obligation to prevent fear from becoming a form of censorship.”
While the IAPA welcomes Colombian authorities’ expressions of condemnation and the preventive measures announced, the organization stresses that the seriousness of these threats demands thorough investigations to determine their origin, identify those responsible and ensure that such acts of intimidation do not go unpunished. It also underscored the need to maintain effective protection mechanisms, coordinated with media outlets and their employees, for as long as the risks persist.
Martha Ramos, chair of the IAPA’s Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information and Director of Mexico’s Organización Editorial Mexicana (OEM), said: “When journalists have to wonder whether reporting the news will put their lives or those of their colleagues at risk, press freedom is already being violated. Violence and intimidation seek to impose silence, but their consequences extend far beyond newsrooms: they deprive the public of essential information, weaken public debate and erode democratic institutions. Colombia cannot allow threats to become normalized or fear to dictate the work of journalists.”
The IAPA also expressed its support for a statement by the Colombian Association of Information Media (AMI), which warned of deteriorating conditions for the practice of journalism and noted that more than 2,000 attacks against journalists were recorded in Colombia between August 2022 and July 2026, including ten killings, four of them in 2026. The association also cited the IAPA’s Chapultepec Index on Freedom of Expression and the Press, which has documented the decline in safeguards for the practice of journalism in the country.
The IAPA agrees that threats, violence and rhetoric that systematically discredits journalists can fuel a climate of hostility conducive to censorship and self-censorship. It therefore reiterates that protecting the press must not be limited to responses to emergencies but must be established as a permanent state policy grounded in prevention, investigation and punishment of attacks.
The IAPA is a nonprofit organization dedicated to defending and promoting freedom of the press and freedom of expression in the Americas. It is made up of more than 1,300 media outlets across the Western Hemisphere and is headquartered in Miami, Florida, United States.
