Increase in threats to journalists

On 16th October, Gustavo Petro's government reached a three-month ceasefire with Estado Mayor Central (EMC), the country's largest FARC dissident group. In an event that took place in the township of Tibu, near Colombia’s border with Venezuela, both sides also agreed to cease attacks on civilians and set up a group that would monitor the ceasefire and could include United Nations personnel, the OAS and the Church. The agreement between the two parties will run from 17th October 2023 to 15th January 2024. The agreement with the EMC includes respecting the rights and freedoms of the civilian population and creating conditions for the holding of municipal and provincial elections, scheduled for 29th October.

The EMC, which did not sign the historic peace agreement in 2016, is composed of about 3,530 elements, including 2,180 combatants. The agreement with the EMC is part of President Petro’s total peace strategy, which includes negotiating with various armed groups, such as the National Liberation Army (ELN). Last year, on 31st December, President Petro ordered his troops to stop attacks on the FARC-EMC but, as reported previously by the Monitor, the ceasefire broke down in May 2023 after the rebels killed three teenagers from an Indigenous community who had been forcibly recruited. In July 2023 Petro ordered a bilateral and temporary ceasefire with the ELN between 3rd August 2023 and 29th January 2024.

Association

Trade unionists, indigenous leaders, human rights defenders, LGBTQI+ activists and former guerrilla signatories of the Peace Agreement continue to be victims of violence as the long-running insecurity crisis continues, impacting many parts of the country. The Department of Cauca is one of the most affected regions with more than 22 cases of killings registered in 2023. International organisations issued a public statement calling on the Colombian government and the illegal armed groups present in Cauca to start a process to find solutions to the armed conflict and cease violent confrontations in the region.

Between 1st July and 30th September 2023, more than 40 social leaders and human rights defenders were killed in Colombia, according to the human rights organisation INDEPAZ. Cases which took place during this period include:

In the first six days of July, eight social and community leaders were murdered. José Hernán Tenorio Mestizo and Albán Mestizo Yosando, social leaders belonging to the Avelino Ul Indigenous Association in the municipality of Toribío, northern Cauca, were shot dead by unknown persons. Cesar Tapias, community leader in charge of the Working Committee of the Junta de Acción Comunal Quebrada del Medio in the municipality of Ituango, Antioquia, was killed on 4th July.

On 5th July three other leaders were killed: Ludis Esther García Jaramillo, leader of the Junta de Acción Comunal of the village of El Capote de la Granja, in the municipality of Ituango, Antioquia; Helmer Luligo Restrepo, the commander of the San Antonio Volunteer Fire Brigade in the municipality of Jamundí, Valle del Cauca; and Jhonis Orfelio García, a recognised indigenous leader, member of the Guardia, former governor and brother of the current governor of the El Palmar reservation in Ricaurte, Nariño.

On 6th July, Hever Gamboa, indigenous leader and Guardia Mayor of the Cabildo Nonam Dur, which is part of the Association of Afro-descendant, Indigenous and Peasant Communities United for the Construction of Peace in Colombia (CONPAZCOL), was assassinated in Buenaventura.

On 13th July, Alex Germán García Guanga, a young member of the Indigenous Guard of the Resguardo Palmar Imbi, in Ricaurte (Nariño), was kidnapped and later killed. On the same day, Franklin Pabón Camacho, an LGBTIQ leader was killed in Malambo, Atlántico. The following day, community leader Salomón Durán was killed after being kidnapped while crossing the Arauca River.

Between the 22nd and 26th July, there were six murders: Ilder Díaz, social and community leader of the corregimiento of Altamira and candidate for the council of Policarpa, Nariño; Tiberio Chepe Zeti, leader, traditional doctor and elder of the Nasa indigenous people of the Kwe'sx Yu Kiwe territory, in Florida, Valle del Cauca; Yesid Pechené Musicué and Carlos Mario Roldán Díaz on the same day in Cauca and Antioquia respectively; Benito Segundo Castillo Gutiérrez, Wayúu indigenous leader, Maicao, La Guajira; and indigenous leader Fredy Bomba Campo, in Santander de Quilichao, Cauca. Bomba was currently the municipal president in Caldono of the Movimiento Alternativo Indígena y Social (MAIS).

On 9th August, teacher José Armando Sánchez Ávila was murdered in Tunja, Boyacá. He was a committee member for the Boyacá-based education union SINDIMAESTROS. On 11th August, community leader José Luis Arzuaga was murdered in La Jagua del Pilar, department of La Guajira. The day after, amid ongoing violence against political candidates and organisers, Ronald Gómez of the progressive Movement of Indigenous Authorities of Colombia (AICO) was killed in the city of Cartagena, Bolívar. He was attacked while with his family. Another social activist, Luis Carlos Melendez, was badly injured.

On 13th August, social leader José Rubiel Guetia was murdered in Caldono, Cauca, and on the same day political activist Herney Arrieta Meza was found dead in Montecristo, Bolívar, after three armed assailants had abducted him from his home the previous night. Community activist Martín Darys Escobar Barón was killed in Zona Bananera, Magdalena, on 16th August. He was president of the Zona Bananera Peasant Association. In 2020, he had requested security measures after surviving an attack, but at the time of his death these were not in place. On the same day, armed assailants shot dead social activist Wilinton Tovar Gil in the district of San Zenón, where he was standing as a candidate for upcoming council elections.

On 21st August campesino leader Marcos Fidel Jiménez Bohórquez was abducted and murdered in Segovia, Antioquia. He was an organiser in the Peasant Reservation Zone, a legally recognised territory in Valle del Río Cimitarra. Two other killings occurred on 23rd August. The secretary general of the JAC community council in the neighbourhood of Sabana Verde Community, in Cúcuta, Yorladis Ayala Moreno was attacked and killed while arriving at her home. Ferley Fernández Rojas was murdered in Florencia, Caquetá. He was president of the Association of the Peasant Reservation Zone La Victoria (AZORCAVI). Social activist Jhon Kevin Taicus Guanga was murdered in Tumaco, Nariño on 24th August. He belonged to the Agricultural Workers’ Association of La Guayacana.

On 26th August armed assailants killed community leader Claudia Ordoñez and injured her husband as they carried out communal work outside the prison in Jamundí, Valle del Cauca. She was an organiser in the neighbourhood of El Guabal and was standing as a candidate for the Jamundí council in upcoming elections. Two other leaders were killed on the same day. Edwin Tapia was murdered in Tierralta, Córdoba. He was a social activist representing land claims by victims of forced displacement. Human rights lawyer and trade unionist Willian Alberto Álvarez Domínguez was murdered in Puerto Libertador, Córdoba. He was an official at the regional department of the National Ombudsman and belonged to the Trade Union for Human Rights Defenders of the National Ombudsman of Colombia (SINDHEP).

On 6th September, Freddy Renhals, a lawyer who worked as a public defender for the Ombudsman's Office, was shot in front of his home in the Rojas Pinilla neighbourhood of Maicao (La Guajira). He was taken to a medical centre but died from his injuries. Three days later, Silvio Rosero Arteaga, president of the council of Taminango, in the department of Nariño, was also murdered. Two unknown assailants entered the council building and shot the politician several times, causing his immediate death.

On 17th September, the indigenous leader José Arley Cruz Chocue, of the Granates Kwe'sx Yu Kiwe community in the municipality of Florida, Valle del Cauca, and the environmentalist Pedro Juan Acosta Zabaleta, in Majagual, Sucre, were shot dead.

Peaceful Assembly

Marches against Gustavo Petro

On 16th August, a large Colombian flag led a demonstration against the government of Gustavo Petro in Bogotá. During the protest, chants of "No more Petro, no more corruption" and "Petro Chao" were heard. Protesters also criticised the government's energy policy and insecurity. Demonstrators walked from the National Park to the Plaza Simon Bolivar in the centre of Colombia's capital. The protest was attended by Senator Miguel Uribe, one of the leaders of the Democratic Centre party. In Medellín and Cali, citizens also took to the streets in dissatisfaction with the president's administration.

On 18th October, the Foro Ampliado de Reserva Organizada (Colombia's Moral Reserve) and other sectors called for a new march against Petro. This was the third time this year that retired military personnel demonstrated against Petro for what they consider to be mistreatment of the security forces. They also expressed their disagreement with Petro's stance on the Middle East conflict between Israel and Hamas. During the march, a group of people, which contained elements alluding to the campaign of the candidate for Mayor of Bogotá, Diego Molano, physically and verbally assaulted two young women. The young women called on the protesters’ support for the victims of the armed conflict in Colombia.

Massive Indigenous march

Between 25th and 27th September, more than 15,000 Indigenous people from 10 departments of Colombia arrived in Bogotá to draw the attention of the national government to the humanitarian crisis that Indigenous communities are facing in their territories due to paramilitary violence. On 27th September they held a massive march from Street 60 to the Bolivar Plaza via Highway No. 7, demanding that the government of President Petro implement immediate measures to end violence in their territories and stop the assassination of community and social leaders. They also demanded respect for the right to territory and self-determination of the Indigenous and Afro-descendent communities. The march was organised as part of the ‘Social Minga for the defence of life, territory, justice, democracy and peace’, which was called for by more than 50 Indigenous, peasant and social organisations from the southwest of Colombia.

The protesters also expressed their support for the various social reforms presented by the Petro government in the Congress that seek to transform the social reality of the country. The action received the support of the national government, who instructed the police and the Bogotá Mayor’s Office to work together to provide washrooms and cooking spaces to the communities, who are temporarily residing in tents set up at the Tercer Milenio park, as well as to guarantee their safety.

Constitutional Court limited the use of internet jammers during social protests.

In April 2021, when the social protest against the tax reform of then President Iván Duque took place in Colombia, the internet became the main tool for disseminating information and expressing ideas. However, during the demonstration, connectivity problems were detected in specific sectors such as Aguablanca and Siloé in the city of Santiago de Cali, as well as failures in mobile devices, preventing citizens from accessing information.

A recent ruling by the Constitutional Court analysed this situation and considered that “there is a right of access to the Internet. This implies that the State is obliged to guarantee access and avoid interruptions that intentionally limit the dissemination of information online. Additionally, it noted that Internet service cannot be restricted for reasons of public order and that, in cases where national security is invoked as a justification for a restriction, the law must previously define its scope.”

Expression

Increase in threats to journalists

In recent months there have been numerous cases of harassment and violence against press workers, hindering their work, causing self-censorship and in some cases forcing them and their families into exile. Some of the cases are summarised below:

On 10th July Sebastián Nohra, one of the Blu Radio journalists who prepared an investigation into the diversion of resources destined for the Peace Accord, claimed to have received two threatening phone calls. But he said he was not going to report them to the Justice department because he had no hope of obtaining results. The Attorney General's Office issued a public statement saying that it had opened an investigation to search for those responsible and that Nohra would be summoned to testify.

At the beginning of August in Barrancas, a municipality in the department of La Guajira, leaflets appeared with the faces of five journalists. Bonato Solano, Astor Alarcon Fonseca, Reinaldo Gómez, Alex Sierra Parodi and Jorge Extrada were identified as "military targets" of a group calling itself "Our armed group of La Guajira". According to reports, the journalists belonged to the campaign team of Vicente Francisco Berardinelli, candidate for mayor of the municipality for the Vamos Barrancas movement and the Conservative Party.

Also, in August and in the same department of La Guajira, Manuel Mejía Ramírez, a radio journalist from the municipality of Uribia, reported having been threatened by text messages and WhatsApp. As reported by El Heraldo, the journalist considered that these threats could be due to his journalistic work publicising the social problems that afflict the population in general, in addition to the dissemination of the dissatisfaction with the bad energy service they are receiving. Mejía recalled that in September 2022 he was also physically and verbally attacked, an occasion on which he also appealed to the authorities.

According to the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), in the Córdoba region, six journalists reported threats and two had to go into exile. Yamir Jhan Pico, director of the digital media Caribe Noticias 24/7, linked the harassment to his having touched on the interests of the Gulf Clan by publishing investigations on illegal mining in San Jorge. The journalist was threatened at his home by several men, which led him to leave Colombia with his family. In the same sub-region of San Jorge, journalists Organis Cuadrado and Wálter Alvarez reported harassment, and investigations have so far produced no results.

On 6th September, Estefanía Colmenares, editor of the independent newspaper La Opinión in the northern city of Cúcuta, received a threat from an unidentified number via a messaging app. According to a CPJ publication, it said: “You are a military target. “There’s a price on your head”. 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 unauthorised visitors. Colmenares said she was interviewed by the popular W Radio station on 1st September about the stories.

The 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.

In October, the director of the web portal Entre Ceja y Ceja de Rionegro, Antioquia, Julián Dávila, reported that the media outlet had been the victim of stigmatisation by local authorities. On 5th October, at a press conference, Mayor Hernández Alzate threatened to go to court against media outlets that spread false news. Subsequently, the law firm Víctor Mosquera Marín, which assumed the mayor's legal representation, announced its intention to take legal action against the media Entre Ceja y Ceja, which it accuses of having a position in favour of political parties opposed to the mayor and of disseminating around nine false news items in recent months.

Cyber-harassment of women journalists

Another aspect of the harassment of journalists is the cyber-bullying of women journalists, which was revealed in a report by the Delegate for the Protection of Rights in Digital Environments and Freedom of Expression of the Ombudsman's Office. The organisation analysed the Twitter accounts of 19 Colombian women journalists from March 2022 to March 2023 and recorded that they had received 1,084 attacks. According to Infobae, Ombudsman Carlos Camargo Assis said: "We have seen the permanent and regrettable violation of rights that journalists face in their professional practice. We reiterate that online harassment of women journalists undermines freedom of expression and affects the functioning of a free and independent press, which is vital for democracy".

Two radio stations in Valle del Cauca shut down their newscasts due to threats. Local radio stations Mundo 89 FM and La Voz de los Robles 14.90 AM in the Colombian city of Tuluá, in the Valle del Cauca, have shut down their newscasts because of the situation of violence in the town. A group of criminal gangs dedicated to drug trafficking have intimidated journalists with threatening leaflets and have forbidden them to cover the city's mayoral candidates, amid the local elections to be held on 29th October 2023.

Attacks on the press related to election coverage

The Foundation for Freedom of the Press and Information (FLIP) said it has recorded an increase in attacks on journalists as the 29th October elections approach. As of 27th October, 42 attacks on the press related to election coverage have been documented. FLIP said that in the face of attacks and intimidation from politicians, armed groups and other unknown parties, journalists choose to self-censor and decide not to report on matters of public interest, such as political issues or those related to campaigns and candidates in their regions. As a result, citizens are unable to know directly what is going on and are prevented from making informed decisions.