The freedom of expression situation in Venezuela has deteriorated since 2008, due to President Hugo Chávez's abundant power abuses, according to a report by the organization Human Rights Watch (HRW).
On Thursday, July 19, the Constitutional Court of Ecuador suspended its session scheduled to analyze the legality of the controversial Democracy Code, a regulation pushed by President Rafael Correa that regulates press coverage during electoral campaigns.
Several individuals broke into a journalist's house and left him a threatening message in Sonora, in northeast Mexico, reported the newspaper Nuevo Día in the city of Nogales.
“Newspapers die or are under military heels or commit suicide because they do not face their real problems." These were the words of Brazilian journalist Jânio de Freitas.
On Wednesday, July 18, Prosecutors sought a 15-year jail sentence for Cuban journalist José Antonio Torres who wrote a scathing investigative piece critical of an aqueduct construction project in the city of Santiago, according to the Miami Herald.
The government of Ecuador has received various criticisms in the last few days due to what Reporters Without Borders has called an excess of presidential attacks on opposition journalists for closing several media outlets.
A Colombian journalist received a threatening phone call with the sounds of automatic weapons being fired while music played in the background, reported Reporters Without Borders.
Authorities in the city of Puerto de Cortés have issued an arrest warrant for a suspect in the assassination attempt on a journalist in Honduras, reported the organization Committee for Free Expression in Honduras (C-Libre in Spanish).
Three Panamanian television journalists were absolved of defamation charges stemming from the broadcast of a video showing a police officer being bribed, reported the newspaper La Estrella on Tuesday, July 17.
Of the 67 killings and 14 disappearances of journalists in Mexico since 2006, in only one case have the perpetrators been brought to justice, according to a special prosecutor testifying before a Congressional panel in Mexico City.
It is no coincidence: the same year that the Brazilian Association of Investigative Journalism (Abraji in Portuguese) celebrated its 10 year anniversary, investigative journalist Tim Lopes received posthumously several honors on the 10-year anniversary of his killing.
Ecuador is one of countries in Latin America with the worst problems in practicing freedom of expression due to President Rafael Correa's repeated attacks on the private and independent press in the country.