Risking it all for the truth: exiled Colombian journalist Mary Luz Avendano

Published: Sunday, November 06, 2011

Colombia has been ravaged by an armed conflict lasting for almost 50 years.

Paramilitary and guerrilla groups, drug traffickers and corrupt police have been trying to silence, by any means necessary, those journalists unwilling to be bribed to look the other way.

Covering controversial issues, like the link between the country's armed forces and the paramilitary, has transformed journalism into a life-threatening activity.

Colombia is one of the most dangerous countries in the world to be a journalist. It was ranked 145th out of 178 on Reporters without Borders' Press Freedom Index in 2010.

And not many know the situation better than Mary Luz Avendano, a journalist for the El Espectador daily newspaper.

This brave woman has achieved an investigative tour-de-force in her home town of Medellin, which, in the 70s and 80s, was the base of the notorious Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar, whose Medellin cartel controlled most of the illegal drugs entering the US.

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