Carlos García-Pérez, member of the influential National Cuban American Foundation (FNCA), on Wednesday, Sept. 22, was confirmed as head of Radio and TV Martí, stations financed by the U.S. government to counteract the censorship in Cuba.
In a meeting with representatives of the Inter American Press Association (IAPA) and the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), Mexico's President Felipe Calderón vowed to put in place by October a plan to protect journalists, similar to one in Colombia, and to launch legal reforms that would make killings of journalists a federal crime, reported the Associated Press and IAPA.
In the wake of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s statements accusing the press of acting like a political party, unions, several worker groups, government partisans, social movement activists, and progressive bloggers are planning an “action against media coup-ism” this Thursday, Sept. 23, at the headquarters of the São Paulo Journalists’’ Union, O Globo reports.
"In no way should anyone promote a truce or negotiate with criminals who are precisely the ones causing anxiety for the public, kidnapping, extorting and killing." With these words, Alejandro Poire, security spokesman for President Felipe Calderon, criticized the editorial in El Diario de Juárez in which the newspaper asked for a truce with organized crime after the killing of one of its photographers, reported the Associated Press and BBC.
Almost two years after crossing the border from Mexico, journalist Jorge Luis Aguirre was granted asylum in the United States, reported La Jornada. The editor of the news site LaPolaka.com had gone into exile after receiving threats when he went to the funeral of slain reporter Armando Rodríguez in Ciudad Juárez. At the time, Aguirre was warned that he was next.
The Electoral Court in Mato Grosso state issued an injunction against the state’s largest media company, Gazeta, preventing it from publishing stories that say acting Federal Deputy and current Senate candidate Carlos Abicalil (PT) supports decriminalizing abortion, A Gazeta and Folha de S. Paulo report. The ruling would fine the paper A Gazeta and the TV station Canal 10 more than $58,000 if they fail to comply.
According to Perfil, the legal offensive by the government against the country’s most prolific dailies has taken a new step, as it prepares to open criminal charges against the owner and director of Clárin Group, Ernestina Herrera de Noble and Héctor Magnetto, respectively, and the director of La Nación, Bartolomé Mitre. They are accused of being direct accomplices in crimes against humanity during the Argentine dictatorship (1976-1983).
The legal debate on the line between protecting the privacy of youth and supporting free expression was temporarily decided on the side of the former, when the Chamber for Minors in the capital city of San Salvador upheld the ruling against José Roberto Dutriz, the president of La Prensa Gráfica, for publishing the name and photos of a minor that was charged in the public killing of another youth in March, El Mundo and ElSalvador.com report.
The National Newspaper Association (ANJ), the Brazilian Association of Radio and Television Broadcasters, and the Brazilian Bar Association (OAB) condemned statements by President Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva that he will “ defeat the papers and magazines that behave as if they were political parties,” O Globo reports.
Authorities warned journalist Esteban Rosario that there was a plot against his life, Diario Libre reports. Several alleged killers would have received $25,000 for the reporters’ death.