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Alert

Journalist in Chiclayo receives death threat after report on police officer; woman reporter assaulted in Tingo María

(IPYS/IFEX) - On 7 and 10 November 2007, journalist Víctor Balcázar Porras received two e-mailed death threats. The threats also targeted his family and warned the journalist that he is being followed. Balcázar Porras works for "Destape" magazine and is the director of the http://www.destape.net website. He told IPYS that the threats were sent after he reported on the website that police officer Carlos Valencia Aguirre had beaten his wife. The news was also reported by other media outlets. The incident took place in Chiclayo, Lambayeque region, northwestern Peru.

IPYS read the e-mailed messages. The second one leaves no doubt that the author, if not actually Valencia himself, is connected to him, as it makes reference to the news item and warns the journalist that if he does not delete the photographs of the officer and his wife from the web page, he will be tortured and murdered.

The Chiclayo municipal government has provided Balcázar and his family with protection.

In a separate incident which occurred on 12 November, reporter Pilar Guerrero Arias, of the HP Channel 9 television station programme "Impacto en la Noticia", was beaten. She was in Castillo Grande, in the city of Tingo María, central Peru, covering a crime committed by an individual named Erick Flores Ramírez. Flores's relatives hit her to prevent her from taping the incident, and destroyed her video recorder. They also attacked the journalist's daughter who was with her at the time.

The journalist has filed a complaint with the Tingo María police station.