“It is an attack on freedom of expression and information,” journalist Rubens Valente said. The Superior Court of Justice and the Supreme Federal Court of Brazil ruled that Valente has to compensate Supreme Court Justice Gilmar Mendes because of information contained in Valente’s book “Operação Banqueiro.”
In 2018, the Association of Journalists of El Salvador presented a draft bill for the protection of journalists. After almost three years, the effort was cut short. The initiative was archived when the ruling Nuevas Ideas party took control of the Legislative Assembly. The parties that resumed the discussion at the last minute hold each other responsible for the lack of approval.
Journalists in Colombia warned that declining working conditions for the press could become more pronounced in 2022, an election year. The Federation of Colombian Journalists (Fecolper, by its Spanish acronym), released a report title “Unprotected on Feb. 9, the Day of the Journalist in Colombia, assessing the state of journalism and the challenges Colombian journalists face.
A study carried out by Gênero e Número in partnership with Reporters Without Borders (RSF) presents data, testimonials and in-depth interviews on the impacts and effects of online disinformation and violence on the daily lives of women and LGBT+ journalists.
While Mexican news organizations initially covered in detail the evacuation of Mexican nationals from Ukraine, as the war continued, Mexican audiences are divided as to how much attention news outlets should pay to a conflict far away from home, when so many people are routinely victims of deadly violence in their own country.
Exactly a decade ago, the government of Guatemala committed to creating a plan to protect press workers in the face of growing attacks. That happened in 2012 during a government favorable to the idea, yet all these years later, it still hasn’t been achieved. Some journalists point to a distrust between the government and the press as a source of the problem.
A surveillance environment in Venezuela has led to the beginning of doubt against free expression – the beginning of self-censorship. Venezuelan journalists have had to find a way to reinvent themselves between censorship, threats, misinformation and media sanctions.
Transgender journalist Câe Vasconcelos works to amplify the voices of the trans community in Brazil— the country with the highest recorded number of trans people murdered in the world. Although the country’s younger generations have made progress toward social acceptance and equality for trans people, there is still a lot of conservatism in their society’s culture, Vasconcelos said.
Like other countries in the region, discussions are already taking place in Bolivia to establish a protection mechanism for journalists that would limit violence against them. For now, the projects are confidential, but the violence against journalists that launched them is visible.
Over the past decade, press freedom around the world is deteriorating and the list of countries facing issues has been growing. With the testimonial of seven journalists from Asia and Latin America, ISOJ 2022 debated the state of press freedom and the serious situation reporters are recently facing in India, Hong Kong, Colombia, Brazil, Venezuela, El Salvador, and Nicaragua.