Colombia: Reporter kidnapped, tortured after covering prison massacre
May 31, 2000
His Excellency Andrés Pastrana Arango
President of the Republic of Colombia
Casa de Nariño
Bogotá, Colombia
VIA FACSIMILE: 571-286-7434 / 286-7937 / 284-2186
Your Excellency,
The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply disturbed by the May 25 kidnapping and torture of Jineth Bedoya Lima, a reporter with the Bogotá-based daily El Espectador. We call on Your Excellency to ensure that the incident is fully investigated, and the guilty parties punished.
The attack apparently resulted from El Espectador's coverage of an April 27 prison battle between common criminals and inmates belonging to the right-wing paramilitary United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC). It appears that Bedoya was kidnapped because of El Espectador's suggestion that AUC leaders may have ordered execution-style killings during the battle, which took place at La Modelo prison, near Bogotá.
Some days before the attack, other inmates from the same prison warned Bedoya that certain jailed AUC members had decided to murder her, other journalists from El Espectador, and a TV journalist. In order to verify this allegation, the journalist began trying to contact the AUC faction within La Modelo. On May 24, an unknown individual who claimed to speak for one of the AUC leaders called Bedoya on her cell phone and gave her an appointment to meet him at the prison on the following day.
According to local press reports, Bedoya and her editor, Jorge Cardona Alzate, reached the prison gate at approximately 10 a.m. on May 25. Cardona went to look for a photographer while Bedoya tried to enter the prison. At this moment unidentified individuals kidnapped Bedoya at gunpoint and forced her into a pickup truck.
At 8 p.m., the police reported that Bedoya had been admitted to a police medical clinic in the city of Villavicencio, where she was taken after a taxi driver found her lying with her hands tied on the outskirts of town. She had been drugged and brutally beaten, and was in a state of nervous collapse. The journalist is currently under medical observation while she recovers from the attack.
This is not the first attack on Bedoya that CPJ has documented. On May 27, 1999, two unknown motorcyclists tried to run over the journalist a few blocks from her Bogotá home. Her mother was injured in the attack. Prior to this incident, Bedoya had published several articles in El Espectador about criminal gangs that kidnapped people for ransom.
We are gravely concerned about this brutal assault against one of our colleagues, which only highlights the enormous dangers that now confront Colombian journalists. In fact, the risks have become so enormous that we wonder how much longer journalists in Colombia will be able to work at all. This is a moment when all of Colombian society desperately needs information about the violent forces at work in the country. To see the vital Colombian press in such grave peril brings us great sadness.
We urge you to ensure that the assault against Bedoya is fully investigated, and that all journalists in Colombia may work without fear of reprisal.
Sincerely,
Ann K. Cooper
Executive Director
Send a letter to:
His Excellency Andrés Pastrana Arango
President of the Republic of Colombia
Casa de Nariño
Bogotá, Colombia
VIA FACSIMILE: 571-286-7434 / 286-7937 / 284-2186
TRANSLATION OF PRESIDENT PASTRANA'S REPLY TO CPJ
Santa Fe de Bogotá, June 28th, 2000
Ms. Ann K. Cooper
Executive Director
Committee to Protect Journalists
New York, USA
Dear Ms. Cooper,
This is to answer your letter of May 31st in which you express your concern
over the cowardly aggression committed against the journalist Jineth Bedoya,
of the daily El Espectador, and the general situation that journalists
face in the line of duty.
As President and as a former journalist, I would like to thank you for
your interest in the unfortunate attack against Jineth Bedoya. It was
not only an attack against her personal integrity, but also against freedom
of expression in my country.
As I mentioned in the statement released by my government as soon as this
unfortunate attack was reported: "to act against a journalist is to act
against a country, against freedom of expression and against Colombians'
efforts to ensure that in our democracy the right to information continues
to be a golden rule."
Such attacks should be met by the utmost rejection of my government and
of all Colombians who, despite the violent situation, do not lose their
ability to be shocked by every new act of barbarism.
In order to address the situation I have described, my government will
strengthen the actions it has taken in defense of freedom of expression,
through initiatives such as the following:
- Supporting the Office for Research on Journalist Cases, created under
the Human Rights Unit of the Attorney General's Office. Such support
will consist in the full backing of all government agencies to the work
of this office, particularly in establishing the necessary logistical
resources.
- Promoting the design of mechanisms to allow journalists to work in
high-risk zones.
- Establishing, under the Interior Ministry's jurisdiction, a program
to protect journalists that is adapted to the needs of their profession.
- Continuing to give maximum support to those organizations and professional groups that in Colombia strongly promote the defense of freedom of expression, and to establish an open channel of communication with them in order to address their concerns.
To realize these goals, it is very important to call for the commitment
of the state agencies involved, of journalists and of media owners. I
am sure that they will hear the government's call to come out unwaveringly
against the violent actors. The agents of violence will not vanquish the
precious freedom of expression, vital pillar of the democratic system
and of the political traditions of Colombians.
Sincerely,
(Signature)
