Is the balance over ?: Semana takes Ariel Ávila’s program off the air

This Monday, through a trill, journalist Ariel Ávila announced on Twitter his dismissal and the cancellation of his program “El Poder” en Semana.

From the beginning of Canal Digital de Semana, led by Vicky Dávila, the political analyst was hired to have an independent opinion program, in order to ensure balance for the audience.

Ávila directed the program The power and on different occasions it revealed scandals of violations by the Military Forces and made critical journalism of the government.

Ariel Ávila is a renowned researcher and columnist, who has become a benchmark in the political analysis of Colombia. Currently, he is a columnist for El País de España and deputy director of the Peace and Reconciliation Foundation (PARES).

His father was a leader of the Patriotic Union, whom, according to the journalist, he inherited a taste for politics. For that reason, he studied Political Science at the National University of Colombia, where after graduating, he worked as a monitor for a professor, “who paid him enough so that he could eat.”

The next job began to outline what his future as an analyst would be. He began carrying out research work at the Nuevo Arcoíris Foundation, after being elected in an open call where he worked alongside two important figures of national politics, the ex-guerrilla and political scientist León Valencia and the former senator, and now mayor, Claudia López.

In addition to beginning to be known in different spaces of public opinion, Ávila began to receive threats for the investigations he carried out on parapolitics. According to the columnist, he had to go with bodyguards permanently, even, at one time, he had to leave the country to protect his life.

After a thorough investigation into Francisco “Kiko” Gómez, a Colombian politician imprisoned for homicide, the journalist suffered a strong string of threats, as did Claudia López. For this case, he managed to collect information on 131 homicides in which “Kiko” Gómez had participated.

He was also a participant in complaints such as the presence of anti restitution armies, responsible for massacres against land claimants, facing José Félix Lafaurie, current president of Fedegan.

Also, in 2018 legislative elections, denounced, together with the Peace and Reconciliation Foundation, the systematic theft of thousands of votes that favored parties and candidates, and that included the participation of institutions and officials of the country.

Recently, the analyst harshly criticized President Iván Duque for “stigmatizing” the indigenous minga.

“It is very dangerous to launch these accusations because that is why there is violence, that is why they kill social leaders, that is why they have murdered people, and this country cannot continue to endure a process of stigmatization. I ask the national government to have respect and if they know who the infiltrator is, to capture him “Avila said in Semana.

Ávila, is a journalist desired by the media, who regularly invite him to carry out analysis of elections, cases of corruption, drug trafficking and violence in the country, not only for his conceptual clarity, but also for the rating that his presence brings. in any program.

It should be remembered that the loud debate he had with the lawyer Abelardo de la Espriella on W Radio, who threatened him at the end of the program.

On the other hand, Maria Jimena Duzán, is another journalist from Semana Magazine who has been on the tightrope for some time due to her independent journalism.

Daniel Coronell and Daniel Samper, former journalists of the Semana Magazine also left the magazine for their positions against the government.

With the departure of the Semana columnist, hundreds of people, through twitter, have reacted and questioned the media’s decision.

Others took the opportunity to thank the analyst for his work.