Bolivia

New York, November 17, 2011--The Committee to Protect Journalists is concerned by reports that a Bolivian TV channel and its sister radio station were vandalized and forced off the air on Monday by supporters of a local mayor. 

New York, September 12, 2011--The Committee to Protect Journalists is concerned by the repeated death threats and harassment of a journalist who exposed corruption in the Bolivian government's Institute of Forensic Investigations this April.

Lately, we have come to expect violence against journalists in certain regions, such as the Middle East. But here at CPJ, 2011 has also been troubling for the number of journalists killed in an entirely different part of the world, the Americas. 

New York, April 22, 2011--David Niño de Guzmán, news director for the La Paz-based Agencia de Noticias Fides, was found dead on Thursday, the apparent victim of an explosive device, after being reported missing two days earlier. The Committee to Protect Journalists called on authorities today to thoroughly investigate the death.

Dear President Morales: We are deeply concerned that provisions in Bolivia's new anti-discrimination law threaten to stifle press freedom. We call upon you to see that this law is amended to ensure constitutional safeguards for free expression.

By Carlos Lauría

The topic being investigated by two Colombian reporters was explosive enough that it required unusual security. Fearful that the subjects would learn prematurely of the story, the reporters took separate notes, which they did not share and which they later destroyed. They didn’t communicate by telephone or e-mail, and they met only in public locations. They relayed only the barest information to their own sources.

New York, July 28, 2009--Following a vicious attack on a cameraman for the La Paz-based television network Gigavisión outside the station's offices early Saturday morning, the Committee to Protect Journalists called on Bolivian authorities today to thoroughly investigate and bring those responsible to justice.

On the evening of April 12, 2009, Raphael Ramírez, editor of the national daily La Prensa, received two anonymous calls at his home in La Paz from an individual who threatened to kill him if he "did not stop publishing lies," Carlos Morales, the daily's director, told CPJ. The following morning, an unidentified individual called Morales' home three times and warned his wife that the journalist would be killed if he did not change the paper's editorial line, Morales said. The caller specified that he was unhappy with La Prensa's coverage of a corruption scandal involving high-ranking individuals in Bolivian President Evo Morales' administration. (The journalist is not related to the president.)

The news media were caught in the middle of a deepening power struggle between the leftist government of President Evo Morales, an Aymara Indian, and the conservative opposition governors of the eastern lowlands. The battle was fueled by rising ethnic tensions between Bolivia’s indigenous majority, centered in the capital, La Paz, and the European-descended opposition based in the lowlands.