Colombian group issues pamphlet to help in libel cases

Colombia — like in too many places in the world — criminalizes libel.

According to the Free Press Foundation (FLIP in Spanish) there have been 48 criminal charges filed against journalists during the last seven years and 25 lawsuits for crimes like slander or libel.

To fight this situation, FLIP released ”Outside Justice: a manual for journalists facing slander and libel charges.”

Press freedom group in Colombia releases guide for reporters facing libel, slander charges

FLIP website

FARC to release French journalist

The Colombian gang FARC announced it would release French journalist Romeo Langlois tomorrow.

The FARC, which started as a leftist insurgency but has now basically settled into narcotics trafficking and kidnapping, captured Langlois after a firefight with Colombian armed forces. Langlois was traveling with the Colombians to report on their activities.

Colombia’s Farc rebels release video of French reporter (BBC)

The announcement came a day before the FARC released a video of Langlois. Not surprisingly the video was sent to Telesur in Venezuela.

 

Forget politics: FARC is just another narco gang

More proof, as if any more was needed for people not blinded by politics, that the Colombian rebels FARC are nothing more than just another narco gang that has little to do with justice and leftist ideals.

French reporter Romeo Langlois was captured by the FARC as he was accompanying the Colombian military on a series of raids to destroy drug cultivation and production facilities.

Farc rebels ‘holding Romeo Langlois as prisoner of war’

The grabbing of Langlois also shows that the FARC cannot be trusted to hold to their word. Back in February the organization said they would be foregoing kidnapping as a regular part of their “revolutionary” acts.

Originally set up as a revolutionary army back in the early 1960s, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia evolved into nothing more than a group of thugs who first hired themselves out to the famous Colombian cartels as bodyguards and security forces. They later began running their own drug cultivation, processing and smuggling operations.

But they always kept up the radical rhetoric and sucked in people around the world who refused to see the change that took place.

Among the supporters of FARC are Venezuela and Ecuador. Presidents Chavez and Correa have repeatedly voiced their support for FARC as a legitimate revolutionary organization. The two leaders even arranged for training and finances for FARC operatives.

The capture of a FARC leader a few years ago included computers. The decrypted files showed letters from FARC’s leaders to Chavez as well as memos to FARC leadership describing diplomatic initiatives involving senior officials of Ecuador.

The FARC is facing fewer supporters in Colombia as the government moves aggressively against drug operations. That leaves Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia as the last group of real supporters. So it is no surprise that more and more of the drug planes, boats and submarines are tracked back to those three countries.

Pakistan agency involved in journalist’s killing. But what about the rest of the world?

The New York Times ran a piece yesterday that the Obama Administration now believes that Pakistan’s spy agency ordered the killing of  journalist Saleem Shahzad, May 29 because of his scathing reports about the infiltration of militants in the military.

Pakistan’s Spies Tied to Slaying of a Journalist

It is good that people are staying on top of the Shahzad case. He did what all good journalists should do: follow the facts and report without fear or favor.

And it is good that there is international coverage about this situation. Think about all the money being pumped into Pakistan by the United States and the rest of the developed world. Kinda disheartening to see that some of that money might have been used to repress the values of freedom of speech and press.

But where is the similar global outrage when Miguel Ángel López Velasco, 55, a columnist with the Veracruz daily Notiver, his wife, Agustina Solano de López, and their son Misael, 21, were killed by unidentified assailants June 20?

Or the condemnations of the unsolved murders of journalists is Russia, Colombia or Somalia?

How about the dozen or so journalists killed in Honduras this year? (Five of whom were killed because of their profession.) Or the continued threats to  journalists while the government stands by?

Bottom line:

Threats to journalists exist around the world. The case the Shahzad killing got a lot of attention. But maybe covering that case was just easy for the non-Pakistan media. They were already in the country covering Afghanistan and the Bin-Laden take down. The Shahzad case was personal to them and it was low-hanging fruit.

The  journalists in Mexico, Somalia, Honduras, Colombia are largely unknown to the major media players. So, unfortunately, they get little or no attention. (Until, like in some of the Mexican cases, there is a direct U.S. connection, such as the journalist asking for asylum. But even then…)

No one is asking for 24/7 reporting on the harassment and killings of journalists. But it would be useful to the readers/viewers/listeners if the death of a prominent journalist at the hands of a state agency could be put into a global perspective.

The top predators against free media

Reporters Without Borders has a great page that identifies the top predators in the world against free and independent media.

Thirty-eight heads of state and warlords sow terror among journalists

The list is the usual group of anti-freedom government types: Hu Jintao, Raul Castro and Kim Jong-il.

There are also the Arab country leaders who are fighting against the Arab Spring uprisings such as Muammar Gaddafi and King Hamad Ben Aissa Al Khalifa in Bahrain.

Iran is so dedicated to controlling the press that it has two identified predators: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Ali Khamenei.

Besides the government leaders noted above, the RSF also looked at private groups and non-state political entities such as Hamas, the Palestinian Authority, the Mexican drug cartels and Colombian militias.

All in all this is an interesting (but not surprising) rouges gallery of anti-free media people and organizations. And to tell you how BAD these guys are, they topped off the list in such a way that Venezuela did not make the list. (And we all know the Hugo Chavez government is no friend of independent media.)