Colombian journalist Oscar Castaño Valencia was beaten and forced to sign a fake confession by armed men while he was investigating the involvement of criminal gangs in child prostitution.
Press freedom watchdog, Reporters Without Borders (RWB), reports that he was attacked by three masked men, tied up, beaten and threatened before being forced to sign a "confession" that he was planning to rape a girl.
His attackers made a recording of the forced confession and, on letting him go, told him his life was at stake.
For the past three months Castaño, director of the programme "Oriéntese" on the TV station Cosmovisión, has been investigating child prostitution and the activities of the criminal groups known as "combos" in the town of Bello in Antioquia, north-west Colombia.
After the attack, Castaño lodged a complaint with the state prosecutor's office in Medellín, the capital of the Antioquia department, and asked the government for protection.
The journalist was forced into exile for nine years from 1987 after being threatened when he was head of the trade union of the Colombian National university. In 2011, he was threatened after making a documentary about disputes over mining activities.
Claire San Filippo, head of RWB's Americas desk, said Castaño and his family should be given "effective protection as soon as possible. The government must ensure that attacks on journalists do not go unpunished."
The Office of the Defender of the Colombian People, a national body created to promote human rights, says it has recorded twice as many reports of threats against journalists this year compared with 2013. Colombia is the second deadliest country for journalists in Latin America.
Source: RWB
