To mark World Refugee Day on Wednesday, June 20, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) released its latest report showing 57 journalists were forced into exile between June 1, 2011, and May 31, 2012. Most of the exiled journalists (seven) came from Somalia, and most (15) fled to the United States. More than half (58 percent) went into exile because of the threat of violence, and 46 percent were exiled because of the threat of imprisonment.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange sought political asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where since December 2010 Assange has been under house arrest because Sweden requested his extradition after he was accused of sexually assaulting two women in Stockholm in August 2010, reported the Guardian and the Wall Street Journal. As the Guardian noted, Assange, facing potential espionage charges that could be brought by the United States, feels it would be harder to be extradited to the United States from Ecuador than f
In a speech before the United Nations Human Rights Council, the Cuban delegate discredited reports about freedom of expression on the island, reported the newspaper Diario de Cuba.
In Longchamps, located in the province of Buenos Aires, Argentina, a hooded and armed individual attacked a journalist with a belt, robbed his money, and threatened to burn his house down, reported the newspaper La Nueva Provincia.
The Ecuadorian government confirmed that members of the presidential cabinet will no longer give interviews to private news media outlets, reported the Ecuadorian NGO Fundamedios. Aside from this attack on freedom of the press, Fundamedios also reported the closure of the ninth news media outlet in less than one month in the country.
In its biannual Global Transparency Report, Google reported that in the past six months, the Internet giant has received more than 1,000 requests from governments around the world to take down information, whether YouTube videos or search listings, according to CNET. This "alarming" level of steadily increasing government censorship included 187 requests from the U.S. government to remove 6,192 pieces of content, 42 percent of which Google complied with, Google said. That's a 103 percent increase over the previous six-
Authorities in the Mexican state of Veracruz, the most dangerous place in the country for journalists, reported that the criminal cartel Los Zetas claimed responsibility for the killing of a reporter from the newspaper Milenio, Víctor Báez, who was killed June 14, according to Univision.
A Mexican journalist who has been missing for a week ago called a radio program on Friday, June 15, to say that she and her two-year-old son were alive and seeking protection from federal authorities, reported Notimex.
On the one hand, there are reporters that are eager to tease out available data and extract valuable information about public administration. On the other hand, there are technology enthusiasts that are trying to find ways to build mapping and information visualization tools that can circulate on the world web. What happens when you put these two groups together? Searching for an answer, the Brazilian newspaper Estado de S. Paulo will launch the first hacker marathon, or "Hackathon," organized by a news outlet in Brazil
About 25 international organizations that advocate for freedom of expression, as well as more than 50 journalists and news media outlets, many of whom participated in the 10th Austin Forum on Journalism in the Americas, signed a petition urging state authorities of Veracruz, as well as the Mexican federal government, to protect the safety of journalists and to solve the nine killings of Veracruz reporters in the last 18 months. The petition was published on Monday, June 18, four days after the killing of reporter Víc
On Tuesday, June 12, the Argentine Journalism Forum applauded the new public information access in the Misiones Province of Argentina, which was approved on June 7 by the provincial congress, and said that this "means a significant step forward for freedom of expression, state transparency, and citizens' rights in democracy."
A report published by the Interacting Advertising Bureau, an association that brings together the main web sites and Internet portals in Brazil, said that the Internet has surpassed newspapers and has become the second-most preferred medium for advertising investments in Brazil during the first quarter of the 2012 year, reported iG.