Héctor Gordoa, one of four journalists who were kidnapped this week in Durango state, was dropped off at Televisa’s Torreón offices, where he worked, AFP and La Jornada report.
Alberto Maquieira, the president of newsprint manufacturer Papel Prensa, has received several threatening letters that say things like “Maquieira, we are watching you,” La Nación reports.
The dissident journalist Guillermo Fariñas, who spent four months on hunger strike to demand the release of political prisoners, was released from the hospital and said he wants to continue writing articles, BBC reports.
Vânia Costa, a journalist for the newspaper O Mato Grosso in the central-western state of the same name, reported suffering harassment after she tried to investigate alleged misuse of federal funds in the city of Sinop, Folha Online reports.
Gabriel Bustamante, a reporter based in the southern city of Ayolas who works with FM Ayolas, La Nación, and Crónica, survived three alleged murder attempts last week, the Paraguayan Journalists’ Union and Reporters Without Borders (RWB) report.
Two reporters and two cameramen were kidnapped from the city of Gómez Palacio in Durango state, where they were covering prisoner unrest, the Los Angeles Times reports. The inmates were protesting revelations that jail officials allegedly armed inmates and used them to carry out drug-related killings, BBC explains.
Just two days after four journalists were kidnapped in Durango state, Ulises González García was abducted from his home in the middle of the night, presumably to be held for ransom, La Jornada reports. The journalist is the director of the weekly paper La Opinión, based in Jerez, Zacatecas in north-central Mexico.
The Foundation for Press Freedom (FLIP) reports that Rodolfo Flórez, a filmmaker and photographer from the port city of Buenaventura, disappeared 20 days ago.
The prosecutor’s office has charged Perla Jaimes, the lawyer who both represents Globovisión owner Guillermo Zuloaga and the opposition station itself, with allegedly obstructing a court order during the raid of the businessman’s house last May, El Carabobeño reports.
In statements to prosecutors, an ex intelligence agency offical said that President Álvaro Uribe and several of his confidants knew about the Administrative Department of Security's (DAS) wiretaps and spying on journalists, judges, opposition leaders, and human rights activists. The incriminating testimony by the former director of DAS is the first that has directly connected the president to the spy scandal, El Nuevo Herald and La Silla Vacia report.