In 2017, the State of Pernambuco in northeast Brazil had the third highest number of violent crimes in the country. In the State, with 9 million inhabitants, 5,427 people were murdered last year, the highest number in 14 years, according to a survey conducted by site G1.
The call for justice for Mexico’s journalists will not stop, despite years of violence and impunity that plagues the profession in that Latin American country. To mark the one-year anniversary of the murder of Sinaloa-based reporter Javier Valdez, colleagues and friends carried out a National Day of Protest on social media and in person, calling for his killers to be brought to justice and for an end to violence against the journalists who uncover things that many would prefer were kept secret.
The International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) recently published a contemporary guide on the ethical principles that should govern today's journalism given the context of the digital media era.
Mexican journalist Juan Carlos Huerta was killed in Tabasco on the morning of May 15 in what appears to be a targeted hit. His death comes on the one-year anniversary of the murder of journalist Javier Valdez, calling attention to the grave violence being faced by the Mexican press.
A statement from independent Nicaraguan journalists condemning lethal violence on protesters and attacks on the press, and urging respect for press freedom from the government, has garnered signatures from 35 media outlets, four civil society organizations, 87 journalists and counting.
Salvadoran journalist Manuel Durán Ortega (42), who was arrested a month ago by police while covering a protest against immigration policies in the U.S., could be deported from that country at any time, Reporters Without Borders (RSF, for its acronym in French) reported.
Two suspects in the murder of Nicaraguan journalist Ángel Gahona were sent to prison on May 8 after an initial hearing before a district judge in Managua, the country’s capital, La Prensa reported. However, the journalist’s family as well as the detainees and other civil society organizations, are protesting the accusation made by the public prosecutor’s office, saying it is a strategy of the authorities to avoid accusing the real perpetrators.
In Brazil in 2017 there were at least 27 serious violations against communicators, according to a report released on May 3 by the Brazilian branch of international organization Article 19, which is dedicated to the defense of freedom of expression. The information compiled by the NGO annually since 2012 highlights continuing trends in the country: politicians are the main suspects of ordering or carrying out violations; small cities, with up to 100,000 inhabitants, are the main sites of these violations; and radio broadcast
The film crew behind the latest documentary looking at violence against journalists in Mexico spent three years (2015-2017) working on the project. Three years which they say were the bloodiest for the country's press.
As they have every year since 1993, when UNESCO proclaimed May 3 as World Press Freedom Day, journalists and freedom of expression advocates in Latin America and around the world gathered at conferences and rallied online to discuss the importance of press freedom and ways to the threats it faces.
Mexican journalist Daniela Rea is the first winner of Breach-Valdez award for journalism and human rights. Upon receiving the award in Mexico City on May 3, which also marks World Press Freedom Day, Rea dedicated it to the families of its namesakes, slain Mexican journalists Miroslava Breach and Javier Valdez, as well as the other “113 colleagues who have been killed in Mexico since 2000.” She received the prize from Valdez’s widow, Griselda Triana, and journalist Pepe Reveles.
In 1920, the Brazilian jurist Rui Barbosa (1849-1923) affirmed that "delayed justice is not justice, but injustice qualified and manifest". Almost 100 years later, his words have inspired the new venture from Brazilian news site JOTA, which focuses on the country’s Judiciary. The bot Rui (@ruibarbot), which launched at the end of April, monitors and publishes via Twitter about slowness in the progress of proceedings before the Federal Supreme Court (STF for its acronym in Portuguese).