The Council of State favored the protection of Petro for having insulted journalists with the phrase “mafia dolls”

2024-10-19 00:52:00

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President Gustavo Petro emerged victorious from a pair of safeguards instituted against him by dozens of journalists, who called for him to be brought to justice retract having defined the journalists as “mafia dolls”.

The decision was made by the Council of State, which deemed the protection actions inadmissible and consequently denied the claims.

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The controversy began on August 30, 2024, during the public possession ceremony the Ombudsman, Iris Marín Ortiz. In his speech, the president Petro referred to journalists questioning his policies and, without saying specific names, he called them “mafia dolls”.

His words were: “The journalists of power, dolls of the mafia, have constructed the thesis of terrorism through protest and the criminalization of the true right to protest and say enough is enough”.

The sentence caused the rejection of the journalists’ union and two safeguards were established before the High Court, which admitted them respectively on 18 and 25 September, and then proceeded to unify them in a single case.

One of the actions was brought by the jurist Germán Calderón España, while the other was promoted by the Foundation for Freedom of the Press, the organization El Veinte and a group of 19 journalists, among whom María Jimena Duzán Sáenz and Ana Cristina stand out Restrepo Jiménez and Jineth Bedoya.

The requests were addressed to the Head of State to retract what he had said and to refrain from addressing the press in pejorative terms in the future. In their argument, they indicated this The Head of State attacked freedom of expression and the right to equality and non-discrimination.

President Petro’s defense, Carolina Bellicia, explained at the request of the Council of State that “there are journalists who, regardless of their gender, have been co-opted by drug trafficking, which represents a serious threat to the integrity of the profession.” that what the president was seeking was to promulgate “free journalism.”