Ángel Santiesteban-Prats, the Cuban author of the critical blog Los hijos que nadie quiso (also available in English as "The Children Nobody Wanted") completed the first year of detention of his five-year sentence on Feb. 28, reported Reporters Without Borders, calling once again for the blogger’s release from prison.
The National Union for Press Workers in Venezuela (SNTP in Spanish) accused the Bolivarian National Guard (GNB) of detaining 41 persons, of whom at least two were foreign journalists who say they were beaten and robbed of their equipment during a protest on Friday, Feb. 28.
The website of the Center for Investigative Journalism (CIPER) in Chile was hacked on Thursday, Feb. 27, for the second time this year.
The United States State Department published on Thursday their annual report on human rights, where it strongly criticized the restrictions on press freedoms and freedom of expression in Venezuela and Ecuador. In the midst of a political crisis in Venezuela, the report highlighted that the Venezuelan government “continued taking actions to impede on freedom of expression and restrict press freedoms.”
Brazilian journalist Geolino Lopes Xavier, known as Gel Lopes, was shot and killed last night in the city of Teixeira de Freitas, in the state of Bahia. He was a TV news show host and director of Portal N3, according to newspaper A Tarde.
A Colombian journalist and his work partner were treated violently by the National Guard of Venezuela while covering protests on Feb. 14, reported the digital newspaper Infobae.
Journalists from numerous news media took to the streets in more than 20 Mexican cities on Sunday, Feb. 23, protesting the dangerous conditions faced by the press in the country and especially in the state of Veracruz, news magazine Proceso reported. The main protest took place around the Angel of Independence Monument in Mexico City, where portraits of the 88 journalists who have been killed since 2000 were distributed among protesters.
Nicolás Maduro’s government continues to repress the news media in Venezuela. A week after NTN24’s signal was cut mid-transmission and work permits for CNN journalists were revoked, Twitter confirmed to BBC Mundo that the images of the protests published through its service are being blocked in Venezuela.
News organization Grupo Editorial Noroeste, from the Mexican state of Sinaloa, demanded on Feb. 25 protection from federal agencies for journalists who were threatened for reporting stories on recently arrested drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán, reported Noroeste.
A panel of journalists gathered Feb. 21 at the 2014 Lozano Long Conference at the University of Texas at Austin to reflect on their coverage of the Central American revolutions from the 1970’s to 1990’s. The roundtable discussion featured the raw accounts of the journalists and highlighted the importance of a new effort by the university's LLILAS Benson Latin American Studies and Collections to develop the largest collection of archives dedicated to the wars that took place in Nicaragua, Guatemala and El Salvador.
Police in the Mexican city of Orizaba, Veracruz, detained and beat a journalist who was covering merchant protests on Saturday, Feb. 22, reported Animal Político.
The Military Police detained and attacked fourteen journalists that were reporting on a protest that took place on Saturday Feb. 22 in the center of São Paulo against the World Cup, which will take place this summer, according to the Brazilian Association of Investigative Journalism (Abraji). At least five of the arrested journalists’ rights were violated even though they identified themselves as members of the press.