Hardly seven months have gone by and 2011 is already the most "tragic year in the last two decades for the Latin American press."
Peruvian newspaper Correo criticized Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa's visit to Peru at the invitation of the Andean nation's new president, Ollanta Humala, to attend the Ceremony of the Assumption.
The ex-director of the Liberal political party in Colombia, Francisco Ferney Tapasco González, is going to be tried in the killing of the assistant editor of the newspaper La Patria, Orlando Sierra.
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) sent an open letter to Ollanta Humala, Peru’s new president, asking him to follow through on his campaign promise to decriminalize media offenses and end existing legal cases against journalists, EFE reports.
As tempers simmered over the sentencing of newspaper employees for defaming Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa, one citizen decided to file a similar lawsuit. But this time it was against President Correa for comments the head of state made about him, Hoy reports. Executives and a columnist of El Universo were sentenced to three years in prison and ordered to pay $40 million in damages to the president.
A court in El Salvador has ruled against Colonel José Arturo Rodríguez Martínez in his defamation suit against La Prensa Gráfica newspaper for an article alleging he had ties to Mexican drug traffickers, El Mundo reports.
A court temporarily stayed a libel and slander case against Grisel Bethancourt, the president of Panama's National Journalism Guild (CONAPE), over an article with judicial information about the slaying of a girl, TVN News reported.
Journalist Yolanda Orda, who had been missing for 48 hours, was found dead in Veracruz, Mexico, July 26, the Associated Press reports. Ordaz, who covered police issues for Notiver – one of the most important dailies in the region – is the second journalist from the paper to be killed in the last five weeks and the seventh Mexican journalist killed in 2011.
While violence against the press in Paraguay is nowhere near the levels found in Mexico, Honduras, or Colombia, journalists in the country have little support and face daily risks, especially those in border regions controlled by international smuggling gangs, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) writes in its report “Journalists alone facing trafficking."
Peru’s Congress has passed a bill replacing prison time for defamation and libel offenses with fines and community service, Perú.com reports. The change was passed June 21, but it still needs the president’s signature to become law.