Several journalism organizations in Guatemala called President Otto Pérez to push for legal mechanisms to guarantee the safety conditions necessary to allow journalists to perform their duties. The demand comes after four journalists have been killed and 60 assaulted and threatened in the last 15 months.
Ecuadorian authorities issued last week an order to detain journalist and activist Fernando Villavicencio after he was sentenced to 18 months in prison. Villavicencio was found guilty of defaming President Rafael Correa, press freedom organization Fundamedios reported.
For Marianela Balbi, executive director of the Institute of Press and Society (IPYS) in Venezuela, the government of President Nicolás Maduro is censoring critical media outlets -- with tactics like the blockage of live broadcasts of the protests -- in an effort to prevent more people from joining the manifestations.
Reporters from different news media gathered on Sunday Mar. 23 at Plaza Madariaga in Caracas to protest the repression against press workers at the hands of the National Guard.
The director of the Caracas newspaper, Tal Cual, Teodoro Petkoff, asked the Attorney General’s office last week to open an investigation against Diosdado Cabello, president of the National Assembly of Venezuela, his attorney Ytala Hernández Torres and Yurbis Sayago Ramos, notary third of Chacao, for allegedly forging public documents, embezzlement and favoring public officers.
Costa Rica’s Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court has ruled that intelligence officials broke the law when they tapped into a journalist’s telephone line, the Tico Times reported.
The Venezuelan TV network Globovisión put an end this week to their partnership with Colombian conglomerate RCN Televisión. The reasons behind the rupture were not specified but in the last two months the differences between the editorial lines of both media groups have grown.
A group of Colombian media organizations plans to send newsprint to Venezuelan newspapers, which are facing a shortage of the valuable resource and possible shutdowns, said the president of the Venezuelan daily El Nacional, Miguel Henrique Otero, according to the publication El Universal.
A joint mission composed by members of several international and Mexican press freedom organizations reported on March 19 the results of their recent visit to Veracruz to investigate the killing of journalist Gregorio Jiménez de la Cruz, according to digital newspaper Terra.
During the second edition of his new radio and TV show “En Contacto con Maduro, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro proposed a conference of Twitter users from Latin America and the Caribbean in Caracas, state TV network Venezolana de Television (VTV) reported.
Vicente Massot, owner and director of the conservative, Bahia Blanca-based newspaper, La Nueva Provincia, testified before a federal judge in Buenos Aires on Mar. 8 about his alleged involvement in crimes against humanity during the last military dictatorship in Argentina (1976-1983).
Last week Brazil's Secretary of Human Rights Maria do Rosário announced new recommendations to protect journalists, which would include providing a Federal Police security detail to threatened journalists, reported news portal A Tarde.