Jineth Bedoya Lima

Jineth Bedoya Lima, "a 27-year-old reporter for El Espectador, a daily newspaper in Bogota, Colombia, covers the conflict between the Colombian government and paramilitary groups. Her reports have resulted in harassment and death threats from those she writes about.

"On May 25, 2000 Bedoya went to a Bogota-area prison, where she was expecting to interview an imprisoned paramilitary leader about rumors that she was on his “hit list.” While waiting for the interview, Bedoya was kidnapped at gunpoint from the prison waiting room, drugged, then brutally beaten and repeatedly raped by her captors. That evening a taxi driver found her in a garbage dump where she had been left with her hands tied.

"Though many Colombian journalists have fled after being repeatedly threatened, Bedoya returned to her job two weeks after being abducted. She has decided to stay in Colombia and continue reporting, though she now does so under the protection of a bodyguard. Bedoya is one of the 2001 winners of the International Women's Media Foundation’s Courage in Journalism Awards."

"Initially, paramilitaries were the prime suspects in the Bedoya case, even though Carlos Castano Gil, the feared leader of the AUC, publicly denied that his organization had anything to do with the abduction. While paramilitary members may have carried out the kidnapping, Bedoya herself now believes that police intelligence agents were behind it."


 * Winner of the 2000 Canadian Journalists for Free Expression International Press Freedom Awards