A new report by UNESCO, the UN’s Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, highlights threats to journalists in Colombia, noting that four reporters were killed in the country in the last four years, reports AFP.
The report, titled “The Safety of Journalists and the Risk of Impunity,” which will be published Thursday, shows that Colombia has seen more journalists murdered in the last four years than Brazil, which had three murders; El Salvador, Ecuador, Guatemala, and Venezuela, which each had two; and Honduras which had one.
Mexico had the highest number of journalist killings, with eleven over the period.
The report expresses alarm that most reporters killed around the world last year were not operating in war zones, but were rather covering local news stories on corruption, human rights abuses and drug trafficking.
“Unfortunately, the frequency of violence against journalists is increasing and this poses a grave threat to freedom of expression and to our ability to seek the truth,” says the UNESCO report.
A Colombian radio reporter was killed in the northern department of Cordoba on Saturday, following her investigations into local paramilitaries.
Despite the high murder rate demonstrated in the report, the figure of four journalists killed in Colombia in the four-year period actually represents a fall in the rate of journalist killings, which numbered eighteen in the years 2002 – 2005, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.