Colombia’s system to protect journalists ‘presents serious flaws': Report

[Judi Lynn]

Colombia’s system to protect journalists ‘presents serious flaws': Report
Feb 9, 2015 posted by Rebecca Florey

According to a report conducted by Colombia’s Foundation for the Freedom of Press (FLIP), over 70% of the country’s journalists believe there are serious flaws in the mechanisms in place to protect them from violence and threats.
According to the report, the protection of journalists and the most vulnerable populations in the country is going through one of the most severe crisis’s since the FLIP’s creation 15 years ago.

While Mexico tops the bill for the most dangerous place to be a journalist, Colombia comes in second with 56 having been killed since the year 2000.
Last year, the FLIP said, most violations of press freedom took place in Valle del Cauca (30 victims), Bogota (21 victims) and Antioquia (17 victims).

Proposals to improve journalists’ security

The organization responsible for the protection of journalists is the National Protection Unit (UNP), but this institution has experienced serious problems which has impaired their ability to ensure the safety and freedom of Colombia’s journalists.
The UNP’s most critical moment occurred in late 2014 when the then director Andres Villamizar threatened to lift the security measures of over 7,000 people who were at risk, including 114 journalists, because of a lack of economic resources.

More:
http://colombiareports.co/colombias-system-protect-journalists-presents-serious-flaws-report/

[forest444]

1. If those who hate the free press like Colombia, those who hate labor rights must just love it!

Death Stalks Colombia's Unions

Pulitzer Center
July 14, 2013

Since 1986, more than 2,800 labor leaders and union members have been killed in Colombia. In recent years this South American nation has led the world in this grim statistic. And more than 9 out of 10 of these cases remain unsolved.

Unions, human rights activists and others say the abuses and dangers persist, and in some case have grown. As a result of attacks on unions and other pressures, the percentage of unionized workers in Colombia has dropped from 15 percent 20 years ago to about 4 percent today.

Teachers have suffered along with others largely because they were seen as social activists and community organizers.
The dangers faced by union members and human rights activists mirror a long-lasting vortex of violence propelled by guerrillas, right-wing paramilitaries, drug cartels, criminals, and, according to human rights groups and others, military and government officials as well.

The State Department’s 2013 report on human rights in Colombia described a nation plagued by “an inefficient judiciary and corruption” that limit its ability to prosecute human rights violators.

At: http://pulitzercenter.org/projects/south-america-colombia-labor-union-human-rights-judicial-government-corruption-paramilitary-drug-violence-education

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You don't need to be an expert in recent U.S. politics to realize that more than a Dirty War, what's happened in Colombia and Mexico is in many ways the Republicans' model for how the U.S. should be run as well.

[Judi Lynn]

2. Truly! The union tortures, murders, even massacres in the U.S. vanished quickly into the past,

and don't seem to come up in U.S. history courses.

Even Dick Cheney's wife, Lynne, got busy writing her own rewrite of US history, which George W Bush and Gov. Rick Perry were only too glad to start introducing to Texas school children.

Republicans want EVERYTHING that doesn't provide the astoundingly stupid and bogus view they enjoy simply removed from public view. No minorities, and lots of praise for Republicans.

[center][/center]
What your post highlighted is that Colombia's union's have almost been destroyed, leaving such a huge pool of ultra cheap labor with no safety requirements, medical treatment, insurance, etc. available. They have been rendered helpless and desperate, all done violently, through terror, coercion by the paramilitary death squads, whom, as we know, were getting death lists from Uribe's head of his D.A.S., spy/security department.

Human beings NEVER stooped any lower than killing for politics and for someone's profit. Absolutely filthy.