Colombia

At least 42 journalists are killed in 2010 as two trends emerge. Suicide attacks and violent street protests cause an unusually high proportion of deaths. And online journalists are increasingly prominent among the victims. A CPJ special report

It's hard to trace things to their origin. But had I not met exiled Colombian journalist Fernando Garavito in early 2004, I don't know that I would have chosen to work, professionally, as a defender of freedom of expression.

New York, August 23, 2010--The alleged mastermind in the 2009 murder of Venezuelan journalist Orel Sambrano, at left, was arrested Thursday in Colombia and is now facing extradition to Venezuela, local and international press reported.

Colombian authorities arrested Walid Makled García in the city of Cúcuta, near the border with Venezuela, according to news reports. A warrant was issued in 2008 for Makled in Venezuela on drug trafficking charges. Venezuelan authorities issued warrants for him last year in connection to Sambrano's murder and for allegedly participating in the 2009 killing of a local veterinarian, The Associated Press reported.

New York, August 12, 2010--A car bomb exploded early this morning outside the building of national Caracol Radio in the capital city of Bogotá, causing serious damage and injuring at least nine people, local new reports said. President Juan Manuel Santos, who took office on Saturday, described the explosion as "a terrorist act," and said it was intended to create a climate of fear. Attorney General Guillermo Mendoza said the attack was aimed at the radio station, during an interview with Caracol. "It is an act of intimidation against the media," Mendoza said without providing any specifics.

For a month, U.S.
officials in Bogotá told Colombian journalist Hollman Morris that his request for a U.S.
visa to study at Harvard as a prestigious Nieman
Fellow had been denied on grounds relating to terrorist activities as
defined by the U.S. Patriot Act, and that the decision was permanent and that there were no grounds for appeal. It was the first time in the storied history
of the Nieman
Foundation that a journalist had been prohibited from traveling not by his
own nation, such as, say, South Africa’s apartheid regime back in 1960, but by
ours, noted
Nieman Curator Bob Giles in the Los Angeles Times.

New York, June 30, 2010—A former deputy director of the national Colombian intelligence agency has been ordered held for masterminding the 1999 murder of journalist Jaime Garzón. José Miguel Narváez is currently behind bars awaiting trial in a separate case.

Among the regulations for Colombia’s presidential election on Sunday, the government barred the press from publishing Election Day news about alleged voter harassment or other irregularities unless it was confirmed by an official source. Local press groups said the rule limited important information on the very sort of illegal actions that have beset Colombian elections in the past. Juan Manuel Santos, a former defense minister and ally of President Álvaro Uribe, outpaced Green Party candidate Antanas Mockus by a wide margin in the Sunday balloting but fell short of a majority, sending the race to a June 20 runoff.