On Tuesday, July 3, the Argentine Journalism Forum (FOPEA in Spanish) released a proposal to limit the financial amount of moral damages that could be claimed against journalists.
During the first six months of 2012, 72 journalists were killed worldwide, a 33 percent increase over the same period the year before, according to a report published on Monday, July 2, by the Press Emblem Campaign (PEC).
On Sunday, July 1, an Ecuadorian journalist was shot nine times and killed by two men on a motorcycle close to his house in the town of El Triunfo, about 38 miles from the coastal city of Guayaquil, reported the Ecuadorian NGO Fundamedios.
The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) called the Venezuelan Supreme Court's decision to seize the assets of the TV station Globivisión for not paying a fee in 2011 a "blatant attack on press freedom."
A legal appeal for protection in support of the Chilean journalist that was suspended for satirizing a tribute to former dictator Augusto Pinochet, on the TV channel Chilevisión on June 8, was presented by the Association of Relatives of Disappeared Detainees.
On Thursday, June 28, Venezuela's Supreme Court declared an "executive embargo" on the holdings of television station Globovisión until the station pays a $5.6 million fine for covering riots at the prison El Rodeo.
Journalists feeling that they are not adequately represented by the National Journalists Union (CNP) of Venezuela on June 27 created the Journalists Platform, a parallel organization to the CNP.
Brazil's National Council of the Attorney General's office approved on June 26 a proposal with recommendations for investigations of crimes against journalists to be thorough, fast, and high-priority, reported the newspaper Estado de S. Paulo.
An Ecuadorian journalist received death threats via an anonymous phone call. The journalist and her family are currently under police protection after filing a complaint, the newspaper El Telégrafo reported.
A French journalist disappeared and is suspected of being kidnapped by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC in Spanish) after being injured during combat between the Colombian Army troops and guerrillas on Saturday