Violence Against Journalists in Latin America

In a report issued at its March 2007 conference in Colombia, the Inter American Press Association (IAPA) concluded that the assassinated journalists were mostly victims of drug and gang wars, reflecting how problematic organized crime is in the region.

Just this month in Uruguay, an editor was assaulted in Montevideo by a suspected drug trafficker, reports Reporters Without Borders (RSF). César Casavieja, founder and editor of the weekly newspaper "Señal de Alerta", received death threats and was later assaulted after publishing a photo of a man arrested for preparing a 100-kilogram shipment of cocaine.

In Peru on 14 March, journalist Yolanda Mío Arteaga, vice-director of television station Canal 31's news programme "Primer Impacto", was assaulted and her video camera stolen by alleged members of a mafia involved in illegal fishing, reports the Institute for Press and Society (IPYS). The assault took place moments after Mío filmed a police search of premises owned by the mafia in the port of Chimbote, northwestern Peru.

There were nearly two dozen more cases of reported death threats in Guatemala, Honduras, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Dominican Republic, Uruguay, Peru, Venezuela and Brazil, some related to the reporting of corruption, said IAPA at its conference.

RSF notes that in 2006 in Colombia, seven journalists were driven out of their local region or obliged to go abroad after threats from paramilitary or other armed groups.(EÜ)