Colombian authorities must thoroughly investigate a death threat against journalist Estefanía Colmenares, ensure her safety, and bring those responsible to justice, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Monday.

On September 6, Colmenares, editor of the independent La Opinión newspaper in the northern city of Cúcuta, received a threat from an unidentified number via messaging app that said, “You are a military target. There’s a price on your head,” according to news reports and Colmenares, who spoke with CPJ.

“Colombian authorities must investigate and hold to account those who threatened the life of Estefanía Colmenares,” said Cristina Zahar, CPJ’s program coordinator for Latin America and the Caribbean, in São Paulo. “It is unacceptable for journalists at La Opinión to face death threats for reporting on matters that are in the public interest.”

The Bogotá-based Foundation for Press Freedom said in a statement that it had documented at least 10 threats or attacks against La Opinión and its journalists in the past six years.

Colmenares told CPJ that she believed the death threat was the result of La Opinión’s recent coverage of Ramiro Suárez, a former Cúcuta mayor who is serving a 27-year sentence for homicide. The newspaper reported that Suárez had been admitted to a local hospital for over a month, where he illegally coordinated political campaigns ahead of local elections, that large sums of money had been found in his room, and that he had received unauthorized visitors. Colmenares said she was interviewed by popular W Radio station on September 1 about the stories.

Colmenares said she had since been assigned two police escorts for her protection.

On September 7, the Attorney General’s office announced that it was investigating the threat. A spokesperson for the Attorney General told CPJ that they would update the public when there was progress on the case.

On September 8, Colombia’s prison service transferred Suárez to a clinic in the capital, Bogotá, because of possible disciplinary breaches and unauthorized visits in the Cúcuta hospital, according to a report by Caracol Radio.

Colmenares told CPJ that it was the first time she had been threatened during her five-year tenure as editor of La Opinión, but her grandfather, Eustorgio Colmenares, one of La Opinión’s founding editors, was murdered for his journalism in 1993 by Marxist guerrillas.

CPJ was unable to obtain contact information for a Suárez spokesperson.

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Colombian authorities must thoroughly investigate the killing of journalist Luis Gabriel Pereira, determine if he was targeted for his work, and bring those responsible to justice, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Friday.

On Tuesday, May 9, two gunmen aboard a motorcycle fatally shot Pereira while he was riding his motorcycle in Ciénaga de Oro, a town in the northern Colombian department of Córdoba, according to news reports and the Bogotá-based Foundation for Press Freedom, or FLIP.

Pereira, 25, founded the local news outlet Notiorense on Facebook this year. He published stories on crime and public security in Ciénaga de Oro, including articles about the recent killing of a woman that named her alleged killer. The reports prompted fellow journalists to warn Pereira that his safety could be at risk, according to FLIP.

The motive for the killing remains unclear, according to those reports. In October 2022,  journalist Rafael Emiro Moreno was also shot and killed in Córdoba, as CPJ documented at the time.

“The killing of Luis Gabriel Pereira shows once again the deadly risks for journalists in the Colombian region of Córdoba,” said CPJ Program Director Carlos Martinez de la Serna, in New York. “Authorities must investigate Pereira’s killing to determine if it was related to his work, bring those responsible to justice, and show a clear commitment to the protection of reporters.”

Córdoba is home to several violent drug-trafficking gangs, according to news reports, and the FLIP statement said Ciénaga de Oro Mayor Ana Bedoya Usta complained that security had deteriorated in recent months.

Yasid Alberto Montaño, police commander in the Córdoba capital of Montería, said the police were investigating the killing and announced a 10 million peso reward (US$2,173) for information that could help solve the crime, according to news reports.

Paola Tovar, a spokesperson for the attorney general in Bogotá, told CPJ that agents were interviewing Pereira’s relatives and working with the police in Ciénaga de Oro to investigate the killing. CPJ called the Ciénaga de Oro police but no one answered.

On Wednesday, Interior Minister Luis Fernando Velasco tweeted that the government “rejects and regrets” the killing of Pereira and called on authorities to “work against the stigmatization of [journalists] who carry out this fundamental task for democracy.”

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The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) condemned the acts of intimidation by criminal gangs against El Heraldo, Colombia, journalists. The organization urged the authorities to investigate the incidents and guarantee the safety of journalists.

The newspaper denounced that it has recently been subjected to “pressures and intimidations from illegal armed actors” with the intention of forcing it to publish its messages. The most recent occurred on March 27, when six men arrived at the newspaper’s headquarters in Barranquilla. Two armed men entered the building and demanded to speak with the director, Érika Fontalvo, who was unavailable, but three journalists attended them. They had a message from Digno Palomino, one of the gang’s leaders, “Los Costeños”, and urged the publication of an interview.

IAPA President Michael Greenspon condemned “the serious threats against El Heraldo and other Colombian media.” Greenspon, Global Head of Licensing & Print Innovation for the New York Times, added that “the forcible dissemination of messages represents a violation of press freedom and the safety of journalists and media outlets.”

Last week a member of a rival faction to Palomino called the newspaper to demand an interview with another of the leaders of “Los Costeños”, according to the organization Foundation for Press Freedom (FLIP). On March 25, a video of the leader of “Los Rastrojos Costeños,” another Barranquilla criminal group filmed in prison, was released, demanding that El Heraldo, Impacto News, and Zona Cero interview him. The latter media outlet also received a warning that day via social media: “You are going to rot with bombs in your facilities.”

The chairman of the IAPA’s Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information, Carlos Jornet, expressed: “We have been warning in recent months of the increase in threats against journalists in several countries of the region, a matter that should be treated as a priority by the corresponding authorities and protection mechanisms.” Jornet, editor of the newspaper La Voz del Interior, of Argentina, urged the Colombian authorities to “address with urgency the issue and put a stop to the acts of illegal groups that violate the free practice of journalism and the right of citizens to be informed.”

The IAPA officers announced that violence against the press would be the main topic during the IAPA Mid-Year Meeting to be held virtually from April 25 to 27.

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Colombian authorities must thoroughly investigate the killing of journalist Wilder Alfredo Córdoba, determine if he was targeted for his work, and bring those responsible to justice, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Wednesday.

On Monday, November 28, two unidentified men on a motorcycle shot and killed Córdoba while he was on a reporting trip in the village of El Salado, in the southern Colombian department of Nariño, according to news reports.

Córdoba, director of the independent online news outlet Unión Televisión in the town of La Unión, was shot three times, according to those reports, which said that police had ruled out robbery as a motive for the attack because none of the journalist’s belongings had been taken.

“Colombian authorities must immediately open a thorough and transparent investigation into the killing of journalist Wilder Alfredo Córdoba, determine if he was targeted for his reporting, and bring those responsible to justice,” said CPJ Latin America and the Caribbean Program Coordinator Natalie Southwick, in New York. “Local journalists covering corruption in Colombia’s small cities and towns too often face deadly retaliation for their reporting, and officials must act to ensure they can continue informing their communities safely.”

Córdoba often posted news and commentary about local political corruption and crime on Unión Televisión’s Facebook page and on his personal account, and had recently criticized unfinished public works projects and the poor state of local roads, according to the Bogotá-based Foundation for Press Freedom (FLIP).

FLIP Director Jonathan Bock told CPJ via messaging app that the journalist had received several threats on social media warning that he would “get into trouble” if he continued publishing his stories. Bock said a FLIP team planned to travel to La Unión to gather more information.

On Tuesday, Unión Television posted a video showing Córdoba’s grieving colleagues gathered around his casket that had been placed inside the TV studio.

The Colombian attorney general’s office said on Twitter that a special team of prosecutors was investigating the attack. CPJ called and messaged the La Unión mayor’s office, the local police department, and Unión Televisión for comment, but did not receive any replies.

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Colombian authorities must thoroughly investigate the killing of journalist Rafael Emiro Moreno, determine if he was targeted for his work, and bring those responsible to justice, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Wednesday.

About 7:10 p.m. on Sunday, October 16, in the northern town of Montelíbano, two men aboard a motorcycle fatally shot Moreno while he was at the fast-food restaurant that he owned, according to news reports and Bogotá-based Foundation for Press Freedom (FLIP).

Moreno was the director of independent online news outlet Voces De Córdoba, which published local news reports on Facebook, and a well-known community leader who received years of threats for his reporting on political corruption and drug-trafficking groups, FLIP Executive Director Jonathan Bock told CPJ via WhatsApp. The Colombian newsmagazine Cambio said Moreno recently investigated illegal gold mining by a powerful drug-trafficking group known as the Gulf Clan.

The Colombian government’s National Protection Unit (UNP) had assigned a bodyguard to protect Moreno and gave him a protective vest and an early-warning panic button, Jhon Murillo, a UNP spokesman, told CPJ via WhatsApp. However, at about noon on the day he was killed, Moreno, who didn’t believe protection was necessary while working at his restaurant, told his bodyguard that he could take the rest of the day off, which he did, Murillo said.

“The brutal killing of Rafael Emiro Moreno clearly demonstrates the deadly risks for Colombia’s most threatened journalists,” said Natalie Southwick, CPJ’s Latin America and the Caribbean program coordinator, in New York. “Colombian authorities must investigate Moreno’s killing to determine if it was related to his work, bring those responsible to justice, and urgently overhaul the country’s protection program to ensure that it keeps those under its care safe.”

Murillo said the UNP provided protection for Moreno for the past six years and that the journalist recently asked for a second escort and a vehicle since he was often left unprotected when his bodyguard ended his work shifts. But Murillo said UNP’s evaluation of Moreno’s security situation had not yet been completed at the time of his death.

Col. Jhon Fredy Suárez, the police chief of the northern Córdoba department, which includes Montelíbano, told Bogotá’s W Radio station that since 2019, Moreno had reported at least 20 death threats against him and that his department was investigating Moreno’s killing. Colombia’s attorney general’s office said it had assigned a special investigative unit that was taking “urgent action” to solve the crime and identify those responsible.

FLIP’s Bock said that it was the first time that a Colombian journalist under government protection had been killed.

On Friday, October 21, Moreno was scheduled to take part in a panel discussion in Bogotá, the capital, on the dangers facing regional journalists in Colombia, Jaime Abello, director of the Gabo Foundation, the nonprofit journalism foundation that organized the event, said.

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Colombian authorities must thoroughly investigate a shooting at the home and office of journalist Erick Niño, bring those responsible to justice, and guarantee Niño’s safety, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Tuesday.

Around 10:45 p.m. on October 5, two men aboard a motorcycle armed with pistols shot several times at Niño’s apartment, which also serves as the office for his independent digital outlet La Popular Stereo Colombia TV, in the central Colombian town of Puerto Wilches, according to neighbors who observed the attack and told Niño, who spoke to CPJ by messaging app, and news reports.

Niño had left his apartment shortly before the attack and returned to find bullet holes in the door, window, and roof of his apartment, Niño told CPJ. He added that the attack may have been in response to his frequent reports on police and army operations against criminal organizations in the region.

The shooting follows four death threats against Niño circulated in pamphlets by criminal organizations since January 2021, which CPJ reviewed. Niño told CPJ that he also received a call to his cell phone the day before the attack, during which a male voice warned him: “You S.O.B., if you keep reporting, we are going to kill you.”

“Colombian authorities must immediately investigate the attack on journalist Erick Niño’s home and office and take all necessary measures to ensure that he can keep working safely,” said Natalie Southwick, CPJ’s Latin America and the Caribbean program coordinator, in New York. “The threats against Niño have already escalated to an alarming level. It is past time for authorities to take them seriously and act to guarantee his safety.”

Niño founded La Popular Stereo Colombia TV on Facebook eight years ago and hosts a nightly one-hour local news program on the outlet’s page.

Niño said he reported the shooting to the Puerto Wilches police, and Colombia’s Attorney General’s office is investigating the attack. Additionally, Niño said he has repeatedly requested help from the Colombian government’s National Protection Unit, which guards individuals under threat, but there has been no response.

CPJ’s text and voice messages to the Puerto Wilches police, the press office of the Attorney General’s office in Bogotá, and the National Protection Unit went unanswered.

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EFF, ARTICLE 19, Fundación Karisma, and Privacy International, represented by Berkeley Law’s International Human Rights Law Clinic, urged the Inter-American Court of Human Rights to rule that Colombia’s existing legal framework regulating intelligence activities, and the unlawful and arbitrary surveillance of members of the Jose Alvear Restrepo Lawyers Collective (CAJAR) and their families, violated a constellation of human rights, including the rights to privacy, freedom of expression, and association, and forced CAJAR members to limit their activities, change homes, and go into exile to avoid violence, threats, and harassment.

Members of CAJAR, a Colombian human rights organization defending victims of political persecution, indigenous people, and activists for over 40 years, have had their communications intercepted by Colombian intelligence agencies and faced ongoing threats and intimidation since the 1990s, EFF and its partners said in an amicus brief submitted to the court in CAJAR’s lawsuit against the Colombian state. Since at least 1999, Colombian authorities have subjected CAJAR members to constant, pervasive secret surveillance on every facet of their professional and personal lives, including their locations, activities, finances, travel, contacts, clients, and protection measures.

The brief demonstrates that Colombia’s intelligence law and unlawful communication surveillance practices violate the right to privacy and other human rights under the American Convention on Human Rights. The brief also provides evidence of the range of targeted and mass surveillance tools employed by the state. In short:

“While international law permits targeted surveillance in limited circumstances and with strict safeguards, mass surveillance is an inherently disproportionate interference with the international human rights to privacy.  But in the last few years, law enforcement and intelligence services in Colombia have purchased tools to expand their pervasive spying network and capture large amounts of communication data.”

As the brief explains, Colombia employs both targeted and mass surveillance tools. Colombian authorities collect, monitor, and intercept, in real-time, individual audio and data communications from mobile and landline phones. Intelligence authorities intercept communications data without prior authorization or judicial oversight, with direct access to communication networks, despite the fact that Colombian law does not authorize any agency to engage in communications interception outside the confines of criminal investigations and without judicial oversight. Colombian intelligence services also have conducted intrusive operations exploiting software, data, computer systems, or networks to gain access to user information and devices.

This case presents an unprecedented opportunity for the court to examine whether Colombia’s intelligence surveillance practices and legal regime comport with the American Convention, the brief, filed on May 24, said. If it finds violations, the court can establish measures to be taken by Colombia to strengthen safeguards against government surveillance. These include requiring prior judicial authorization, effective independent oversight, and transparency measures, like notifying people targeted by surveillance to ensure effective remedies in case of abuse.

Testimony during the hearing presenting the case to the court in May has also provided clear indications of abusive government surveillance practices. An expert witness defending Colombia’s Intelligence Law’s compliance with human rights standards explained that the monitoring of electromagnetic spectrum – a surveillance measure authorized by the law – could entail monitoring conversations within an entire city zone (public hearing at 2:28:00, in Spanish). He mentioned the random nature of the monitoring, which is not targeted to specific persons, as a positive feature and justification for not requiring a prior judicial authorization. However, such random, dragnet surveillance can’t be deemed compatible to the American Convention’s necessity and proportionality standards.

The expert witness also said the use of malicious software for intelligence activities is regulated in Colombia “in the sense it is channeled within the monitoring tasks,” as per the Intelligence Law (public hearing at 2:00:13, in Spanish). Yet, the law does not contain any particular authorization for the use of malware technology. This means that, aside from proportionality concerns the use of malware raises, Colombia’s Intelligence Law does not clearly and precisely authorize the state to employ this type of technology – which the principle of legality requires under international human rights law.

Colombia has argued that its Intelligence Law, approved in 2013 following media reports unveiling wrongful surveillance by intelligence agencies targeting human rights defenders and journalists, establishes specific circumstances under which intelligence activities can be authorized. The government claimed the law ensures that any intelligence action conforms to the principles of legality, proportionality and necessity, and provides human rights safeguards at various levels.

Yet, the brief explains that Colombia’s intelligence legal framework has enabled abusive surveillance practices in violation of the American Convention and has not prevented authorities from unlawfully surveilling, harassing, and attacking CAJAR members. Even after Colombia enacted the new law, authorities continued to carry out unlawful communications surveillance against CAJAR members, using an expansive and invasive spying system to target and disrupt the work of human rights defenders, journalists, and others.

The brief builds on the most protective understanding of international human rights law and standards held by international courts and human rights bodies. It urges the Inter-American Court to establish rigorous human rights protections that limit state surveillance and prevent future violations. With this case, the court has a crucial opportunity to ensure that the American Convention’s safeguards are applied to, and serve as a check on, unparalleled state surveillance powers employed in the digital age.

 Amicus Brief CAJAR v. Colombia – English

 Amicus Brief CAJAR v. Colombia – Spanish

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The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) expressed concern and condemned the campaign of stigmatization and harassment by the Mayor’s Office of Medellín against the newspaper El Colombiano. The organization called for the suspension of this dangerous practice, which could lead to acts of physical violence.

El Colombiano denounced that Mayor Daniel Quintero and some of his officials undermined the newspaper’s credibility, which they described as a “pamphlet.” They also harass and stigmatize its director, Luz María Sierra, in retaliation for journalistic investigations and criticisms of alleged irregularities, nepotism, and acts of corruption on social networks.

In addition, the Mayor’s Office obstructs, delays, or does not respond to requests for access to information. According to the newspaper, Quintero has maintained a distant attitude toward the press since he arrived at the mayor’s office in 2020, especially with El Colombiano and its journalists.

Quintero was suspended from his post on May 10 for expressing in a video his support for Gustavo Petro’s presidential candidacy. The Attorney General’s Office accuses him of violating the law, prohibiting public officials from participating in electoral campaigns. There is no specification about how long the suspension would last. Presumably, it will be until the end of the second round of elections and the announcement of the country’s new president.

IAPA president Jorge Canahuati urged the politician and his staff to “cease the harassment against El Colombiano.” Canahuati, executive president of Grupo Opsa of Honduras, expressed “concern over the continued stigmatization and discrediting coming from the mayor’s office, which we fear could encourage violence and threats.”

The president of the Commission on Freedom of the Press and Information, Carlos Jornet, editor of La Voz del Interior of Argentina, added: “In a democracy, journalists and the media fulfill a supervisory function of the public administration, which is often subject to natural tensions, but this does not justify discrediting campaigns from those in power.”

Canahuati and Jornet also recalled that the Declaration of Principles on Freedom of Expression of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) establishes: “Public officials are subject to greater scrutiny by society.”

Last week, officials of the mayor’s office lashed out at the newspaper’s editor for questioning a trip by the mayor and nine others to Washington, DC, to denounce their suspension before the IACHR.

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By Laura Rodriguez

Mabel Quinto Salas is a reporter for Radio Pa’yumat, a station in the Northern Cauca region of Colombia. But she doesn’t identify as a journalist. Instead, she calls herself a “community communicator,” a category that is common among Colombia’s Indigenous communities.

“Communication is seen as a tool for visibility, for denunciation of human rights violations, but also for community and territorial defense,” Quinto, a member of the Nasa community in Colombia’s Çxhab Sala Kiwe Indigenous territory, told CPJ.

Communicators report on their own communities and the subjects that impact their lives, such as forced displacement due to land disputes between the government and multinational corporations, the climate crisis, and other issues. They say that their proximity to the people and issues they cover make them better at telling the community’s stories and relaying critical information to their audiences.

However, they say they face special challenges in their work. In interviews with CPJ, communicators from across the country said they occupy a particularly precarious place in Colombia’s press corps as threats to their reporting and safety come from many sides, including state security forces and non-state armed actors. Beyond physical violence, many say they face discrimination and attempts to discredit their work by both the non-Indigenous public and law enforcement.

Many communicators report for radio stations affiliated with Colombia’s Indigenous councils, and some are council members, blurring the line between journalist and authority that exists in many parts of the world. Quinto, for example, is a member of the Regional Indigenous Council of Cauca, or CRIC, an umbrella group promoting Indigenous self-governance.

But that blurring is part of the point as communicators see themselves as standing up for their rights, just as the councils do. “Self-determined communication,” as Quinto calls her reporting, fulfills a need that Colombia’s other media – whether state and military-run, private, or independent – has been unable or unwilling to fulfill, she said.

In the Pacific coast city of Buenaventura, Colombia’s busiest port, freelance documentary photographer and communicator, Jann Hurtado reports on the experiences and everyday life of the city’s predominantly Afro-Colombian residents. Hurtado told CPJ that the risks facing communicators are intensified at protests as law enforcement, which has a ruthless history of suppressing protests, sometimes confuse them with protesters.

“Many of my colleagues – documentary photographers or freelance photographers – are scared to go out and cover protests or events because we don’t know if we’ll be able to return to our homes… with our equipment and team intact,” said Hurtado.

Diana Mery Jembuel Morales, an Afro-Indigenous Misak communicator, told CPJ that authorities at protests don’t recognize communicators as legitimate journalists.

“When you attend a large protest and see a journalist with a [press] vest, the state authorities respect their presence… but when you see a communicator with a tape recorder or camera, they do not respect them,” said Jembuel, who is also a former leader of an Indigenous council.

Javier Mauricio García Jiménez, who in 2015 founded Teleafro, a Bogotá-based TV news channel produced by Afro-Colombians, agreed. “Although [the police] don’t touch you, you feel like at any moment a bullet could come at you and not only damage your camera but your head as well, so naturally you limit yourself in many street protests.”

CPJ emailed questions about police behavior toward journalists at protests to the office of the Colombian ministry of defense but did not receive answers.

Another issue facing communicators is lack of access. Jembuel described incidents in which officials never returned requests for information on territorial disputes or forced displacement, or were slow to do so. “We must be careful about who we interview, how we interview them, and why we are interviewing them, because many institutions refuse to give us any information at all,” she said.

Other communicators said authorities give preferential treatment to mainstream outlets. Afro-Indigenous communicator and Indigenous council member Erika Yuliana Giraldo Zamora from the Embera Chamí community in the Caldas department in Colombia’s central coffee region, said local communicators struggle to get interviews with state officials. On the other hand, she has seen reporters from Bogotá-based outlets like national television network RCN fly in police helicopters as part of their coverage.

Juan Pablo Madrid-Malo Bohórquez, a coordinator at the Bogotá-based Foundation for Press Freedom, or FLIP, told CPJ that during the 2019 military Operation Artemis, which has allegedly displaced people in the name of fighting deforestation, reporters from national outlets were accompanied to the site of the operation in police helicopters while communicators had to rely on WhatsApp communiques from the authorities.

While the communicators are not formally recognized as journalists, they still attract similarly unwanted attention from the authorities. CPJ has documented a long history of surveillance of journalists and other public figures by Colombian military and intelligence authorities, from a wiretapping scandal that led to the dissolution of the national intelligence agency in 2011, to revelations in 2020 that members of the military had illegally surveilled investigative journalists working for national newsweekly Semana.

Jembuel believes she and her colleagues have been among those monitored, recounting times that she and her colleagues detected interference on phone calls, or received anonymous calls from people seeking information about Indigenous activities. She said that she has mysteriously lost internet service, alleging that it was a way for authorities to silence her work.

CPJ emailed questions to the office of the Colombian Ministry of Defense and received confirmation of our inquiry but did not receive a response regarding the possibility of phone monitoring.

On top of these other obstacles, Colombia’s Indigenous communicators confront the constant barrier of discrimination. “It’s harder, because there is so much racism,” said Giraldo, “Apart from the fact that you are an independent, alternative communicator, you are also Indigenous.”

Laura Rodriguez is a former CPJ intern and an associate project manager at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement in Boston. She is an alumna of Northeastern University where she earned a bachelor’s degree in international affairs and journalism and a masters degree in international affairs with a focus on public policy and Latin America. 

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