Hearse chased journalist Cecilia Orozco for more than 40 blocks

On April 3, the news program Noticias Uno made a serious complaint on the air. According to the media, its director Cecilia Orozco was chased by a mortuary chariot to her residence.

According to the media, the event occurred on the last holiday weekend when Orozco left the news office on his way to his home. The journalist was traveling in western Bogotá, when she noticed that a hearse, but without plates, was following her very closely.

The news showed how the car followed the communicator for more than 40 blocks, before the police intervened. The uniformed personnel who arrived at the scene stopped the vehicle and questioned the driver.

The driver's response surprised the uniformed men and the journalist's escorts. According to the man, a colleague of the company told him “follow the security scheme”. He also added that his job was to go and pick up a “deceased”.

Although the driver insisted that he was going to provide the service, the car did not have a coffin, death certificate or health permit allowing him to move a body and did not have the exact address from where he was supposed to pick up the body.

During the inspection, the driver of the hearse presented a card from the funeral services company Jardines del Recuerdo, which, when questioned about the identity of the subject, assured that he no longer worked there and that during the time he was a worker he was a tombstone designer.

The subject said he also worked for the Renacer Group, but the company denied that it worked there. For now the authorities are investigating the case, so that they can reveal who is behind it.

Violence against journalists continues to rise

The Foundation for Press Freedom (FLIP) revealed some data on the attacks that journalists were subjected to in Colombia throughout 2021 and so far in 2022. Unfortunately, Flip recorded 700 physical attacks, threats, harassment and obstructions to the Colombian press last year.

First of all, the Foundation stressed that the attacks recorded last year occurred mainly in the middle of the days of protest of the National Strike, which lasted a little more than two months. The total number of attacks was 684, clarifying that within an attack there may be more than one journalist involved, so the victims were 768.

These data are alarming because they would show that, in recent years, attacks on the press in Colombia have increased. Considering that in 2020 the same foundation registered 449 cases and 648 victims, which means an increase of 31%.

So far in 2022, Flip has already recorded 22 violations of press freedom in Colombia. In detail, the entity explained that there are harassments (9), threats (8), obstacles to accessing information (2) and damage to the media infrastructure (2).

Regarding the attacks that took place in 2021, Flip established that “the public force was the biggest aggressor of the press” with 247 recorded attacks, of which 227 were in the middle of the days of protest. This would mean that approximately 1 out of every 3 attacks on the press come from the country's public forces.

Threats to journalists were the most common form of aggression. “In 2021, there was an increase in cases compared to the previous year, when we registered 152. The threats have different consequences: from self-censorship, to the abandonment of journalism”, the Flip report reads. And those who threatened the press were mainly unknown (56), individuals (52) and the security forces (18 cases).

Then there were physical attacks, which in total were 168 in 2021, while in 2020 there were 30 cases. According to the entity, these occurred mainly in the midst of the demonstrations of the National Paro, where journalists were pushed, beaten with fists, stones, shields and kicks, and some were even stabbed.

Complaints filed by the Foundation for Freedom of the Press also recorded 65 harassments, 57 obstructions to journalistic work, 43 obstructions of access to information and 36 cases of judicial harassment.

Regarding the obstruction of access to information, the foundation reported that in 2021 “we recorded 42 cases in which public servants failed to comply with their constitutional duty and refused to provide information on issues such as pandemic management, social demonstrations, public procurement and local administrations.”

In the same way, the foundation insisted that “every day journalists request data and information from State entities to carry out oversight on issues of high public interest. Obstructing this right affects us as a society.”

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