Colombia: Journalist investigating child prostitution gangs, assaulted and threatened

en.rsf.org reported the journalist Oscar Castaño Valencia was assaulted and threatened by armed men four days ago as he was investigating the involvement of criminal gangs in child sexual exploitation in Antioquia department in North-West Colombia.

For the past three months Castaño, director of the program “Oriéntese” on the TV station Cosmovisión, has been carrying out an investigation into child sexual exploitation activities by the criminal groups known as “combos” in the town of Bello in Antioquia. He was on his way to meet a source when he was attacked by three armed and masked men. He was tied up, threatened and beaten, then forced to sign a “confession” that he had gone there with the intention of raping an under-age girl. The attackers made a recording of the forced confession then let him go, telling him his life was at stake.

After the attack, Castaño lodged a complaint with the state prosecutor’s office in Medellín, the capital of Antioquia department, and asked the government for protection. The journalist had previously been threatened when he was head of the trade union of the Colombian National University and was forced into exile for nine years in 1987. Read Article