Colombia: The director of La Opinión is threatened, declaring her a “military objective”

Estefanía Colmenares, director of the newspaper La Opinión de Cúcuta, the only one printed in the Colombian department of Norte de Santander, denounced that she has received threats and that she was declared a “military objective” by putting, the people who have threatened her, a price on her head .

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It is the first time that Colmenares, who took over as director of the newspaper La Opinión 5 years ago, receives a threatwhich was sent to his phone by people who have not yet been identified.

“Although the reasons behind this threat are unknown, we consider it important to make them public as a rejection mechanism and to reiterate our commitment to journalism, to the truth, and to investigations that can combat corruption,” the journalist wrote on her Twitter account. X (formerly Twitter).

However, a few days ago, Colmenares participated in an interview with a national media in which he spoke of the former mayor of Cúcuta (capital of Norte de Santander) Ramiro Suárez, sentenced to 27 years in prison and who is hospitalized at the Erasmo Meoz University Hospital (Huem ).

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La Opinión published an investigative work on the irregularities that were being committed on the 11th floor of the hospital directed by Ramiro Suárez, who would be coordinating two political campaigns, one for the Cúcuta Mayor’s Office and the other for the Norte de Santander Governor’s Office.

The opinion It assures that the “monitoring of this newspaper generated reactions in different entities that have begun to exercise greater vigilance over the hospital and over the situation of Suárez, sentenced to 27 years in prison for the murder of Alfredo Enrique Flórez.”

Likewise, in a publication, he explained that “this is the first time that Colmenares receives a threat since he assumed the direction of the nortesantanderean newspaper. The message announcing that it is a military objective and that from now on her head has a price was what the journalist received yesterday.

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The Ombudsman’s Office rejected this Thursday the “threats against life and integrity” and called for respect for freedom of information. “Journalism must be exercised freely, without pressure or intimidation and with guarantees so that journalists can report in and from the regions,” said this entity.

Stephanie Colmenares, 39, is a social communicator from the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Bogotá, and has a master’s degree in Journalism from the universities of Barcelona and Columbia. The changes and modernization of the printed and digital versions of La Opinión are due to her.

She took over as director in replacement of her father, José Eustorgio Colmenares Ossa, who had been in charge since March 14, 1993, when he replaced her father, Eustorgio Colmenares Baptista, assassinated by the guerrillas of National Liberation Army (ELN).

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The newspaper also recalled that in 2001 they left a bomb to be detonated remotely at its facilities and that “in the most difficult times of violence in Cúcuta, some of its journalists were subjected to various threats with the purpose of silencing them.”

Source: Elcomercio

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I am Jack Morton and I work in 24 News Recorder. I mostly cover world news and I have also authored 24 news recorder. I find this work highly interesting and it allows me to keep up with current events happening around the world.