A community radio journalist was murdered in Cauca on Wednesday 1 August, as the violence against civil society activists continues. Valentín Rúa Tezada, who for 15 years had run the Salvajina Estéreo radio station, was shot dead outside his home in the town of Suárez.
‘We demand that local and national authorities advance quickly in the investigation to identifty the motive for the murder of the journalist Valentín Rúa Tezada and hold them responsible’, said the Foundation for Press Freedom (FLIP).
The murder comes just a week after international organisations, the United Nations and the European Union, and fifteen embassies sent a letter to the Colombian government expressing their alarm over a sharp rise in threats against journalists in Colombia. According to FLIP, there has been a 48 per cent increase in the past year.
Earlier this week, Colombian news station RCN Radio denounced threats made against two of its journalists, Katherine Leal and Juan Pablo Latorre. Two weeks earlier, RCN previously denounced threats against Mr Latorre and his colleague Jorge Espinosa.