Hollman Morris: Hillary and her buddy uribito back down

[rabs]

The U.S. reversed its decision to deny a visa to prominent Colombian journalist Hollman Morris, who will now be able to take up his place as a Neiman International Fellow at Harvard University.

Morris told Colombia Reports that "the U.S. consul in Colombia called me this morning to advise me that they had accepted my visa and that they will give it to me in the next few days." The Colombian journalist's comments contradict an AP report, which state that Morris and his family had already picked up their visas from the U.S. embassy on Tuesday.

Morris announced mid July that his application for a U.S. visa had been rejected under the "terrorist activities" section of the Patriot Act and that the move "indisputably puts my life in danger," prompting international press to petition that the rejection be reconsidered.

The journalist said Tuesday that the reversal of the visa denial was thanks to "pressure" that international organizations such as Human Rights Watch, the Committee to Protect Journalists, The InterAmerican Press Association, the Open Society Institute, and the American Civil Liberties Union, as well as Harvard University, had applied regarding the U.S.'s decision.


http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/11037-us-reverses-decision-on-colombian-journalists-visa-denial.html

[Judi Lynn]

1. You can always count on the U.S. gummint to try to cover its ass. They attempted to obscure

the fact they hadn't given him his visa yet, unaware it would make them look really stupid being caught in another lie.

Thank goodness for the groups protesting, and from Harvard from keeping the pressure going, to FINALLY pry that damned visa from the State Department. If they hadn't helped, he would probably be doomed, what with the Uribe administration fighting to keep him from getting it, and its access to so many assassins.

Hope his brother, Juan Pablo will be able to keep from being harmed, as well.

Hope we will be hearing a lot from this heroic journalist in the years to come, rabs.

Thanks for providing this welcome news. Really didn't expect to see it until it appeared. Feared the State Department and Uribe would have the last word.

[flamingdem]

2. Yay, can't pull the wool over Harvard that easily! nt

[Judi Lynn]

3. OAS Asks State Department To Reconsider Colombian Journalist’s Visa Application

OAS Asks State Department To Reconsider Colombian Journalist’s Visa Application
Posted by Staff on Jul 26th, 2010 and filed under Colombia, Dispatches, United States.

http://latindispatch.com.nyud.net:8090/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/Nieman.jpg

Walter Lippman House, seat of the Nieman Foundation at Harvard University.

NEW YORK — The Organization of American States asked the U.S. State Department last week to reconsider its rejection of Colombian journalist Hollman Morris’ visa, the Colombian press reports.

Hollman Morris, a journalist whose investigative reporting on the connections between paramilitary violence and politics in war-torn Colombia has earned him and his family repeated death threats, was denied a visa this month to serve as a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University.

The hemispheric organization’s special rapporteur for freedom of expression, Catalina Botero, asked Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to reconsider the application, saying that Morris’ “trip to Harvard with his family guarantees their protection from serious threats they have received because of his journalistic work,” according to Colombian newspaper El Espectador.

In a country where security concerns often deter journalists from venturing into the countryside, Hollman and his borther Juan Pablo pride themselves on taking their cameras into the areas most devastated by the conflict. They produce a television show called “Contravía,” the Spanish term for going the wrong way down a one-way street.

The Morris brothers’ reporting has played a significant role in elucidating connections between politics and right-wing paramilitaries. In Colombia, over one third of Congress members have faced investigations for ties to illegal armed groups since 2006.

“The Contravía show and the Morris brothers have been doing incredible, very strong work, unearthing a hidden part of the Colombian conflict, which has often been caricatured,” said Mark Schapiro of the Center for Investigative Reporting, who profiled the Morris brothers in a video report in April 2009. “These guys clearly work in very difficult circumstances and take on very powerful interests. They’re in a very vulnerable spot.”

Documents released by Colombia’s attorney general’s office this year revealed that the country’s intelligence service, known as the DAS, had targeted Morris in a campaign to undermine his credibility and falsely link him to the FARC, a leftist guerrilla army. The documents specifically mention plans to request the suspension of Morris’ U.S. visa.

Harvard has protested the denial. “In the 60 years that foreign journalists have participated in the Nieman program, they have sometimes had trouble getting their own countries to allow them to come,” Nieman Foundation Curator Bob Giles wrote in an op-ed published in The Los Angeles Times. “Morris, though, is the first person in Nieman history to be denied the right to participate not by his own country but by ours. The denial is alarming.”

The rejection of Morris’ visa only months after the DAS files were made public has sparked an uproar among U.S. press freedom and human rights groups familiar with Morris’ work.

“Mr. Morris has been granted visas to visit the United States in the recent past to attend academic and journalistic events. He should not be denied one now,” the National Association of Hispanic Journalists told the State Department, according to a press release posted to the organization’s Web site.

More:
http://latindispatch.com/2010/07/26/oas-asks-state-department-to-reconsider-colombian-journalists-visa-application/