The President of the Justice Commission of the Chamber of Deputies of the Dominican Republic, Demostenes Martínez, announced yesterday that prison sentences for defamation and slander have been removed from the Penal Code reform, currently being reviewed in the legislature, said news website dr1.
On Monday, March 4, the Social Communication Council of the National Congress of Brazil approved a request to speed up voting on a proposal to federalize the investigation of crimes against journalists, said newspaper Folha de S. Paulo.
Non-profit organizations and leaders from 15 media organizations in Latin America participated in a meeting to express their concern about a series of proposals that would weaken the Inter-American Human Rights System
The Press and Society Institute (IPYS in Spanish) said that the first months of 2013 have been "disastrous" for freedom of information in Peru, according to a report published by the organization on its website.
One week after the Mexican newspaper El Siglo de Torreón became the target of three armed attacks in a week, its editorial director Javier Garza considers that the protection measures employed to safeguard media outlets and journalists, which include the deployment of police forces, should be re-evaluated since they can be counterproductive.
The National Press Association of Bolivia, or ANP, described new rules in the country's law against human trafficking as an "attack" on freedom of expression and the "confiscation" of media outlets' financial resources, news portal Los Tiempos reported.
The Uruguayan government has opened up six frequencies to community radio stations after a public call for proposals, said the website Voces.
Ecuadorian newspaper El Diario reported that unknown men impeded the circulation of their Feb. 25 edition in the cantons of Pedernales and Jama, in the northeastern province of Manabí.
The Attorney General of Goiás accused five suspects of the murder of journalist Valério Luiz de Oliveira on Wednesday, Feb. 27, said the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo.
The Attorney General of Peru has asked a journalist to reveal the source for his latest story, said the website Crónica Viva. Carlos Ampuero Ferrerira, from the newspaper La Región, received the request from the Attorney General of the province of Maynas, added the website.
In Brazil defamation currently carries a minimum sentence of only three months, but that could change to two years if a penal code reform project currently being discussed in the Senate is approved.
Jaime Guadalupe Domínguez, the director of a news site in the Mexican city of Ojinaga -- in the Northern state of Chihuahua -- was killed in the afternoon of March 3 by a group of armed men, reported the newspaper Diario de Chihuahua.