In 2011, 172 attacks against the Mexican press were registered, and nine of these were killings. That's up from the 155 attacks recorded in 2010, according to a report from the organization Article 19 released Tuesday, March 20. The report, Forced Silence: The State Complicit in Violence Against the Press, shows that public officials were responsible for more than half of these attacks, according to the magazine Proceso.
Most attacks against the Mexican press come from police and military, and authorities are collaborating with organized crime by not investigating or punishing cases that harm freedom of expression, according to several Mexican media reporting on an upcoming study titled "Forced Silence: The State, Accomplice in Violence Against the Press in Mexico." The report is to be released by the press freedom organization Article 19 on Tuesday, March 20, in Mexico City.
On Monday, March, 19, a car bomb exploded in front of the offices of a Mexican newspaper in Ciudad Victoria, capital of the northern state of Tamaulipas, reported the BBC. This makes the 25th armed attack with explosives against news media outlets in Mexico in the last three years -- none of which have been investigated by authorities, according to an upcoming report from the press freedom organization Article 19 that will be released on Tuesday, March 20.
A Bolivian journalist was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison for defamation stemming from a article that linked a lawyer linked with corruption, reported the newspaper La Razón. This is the first criminal sentence against a reporter in Bolivia since 1997, added the news agency EFE.
The Guatemalan press reported 33 assaults during 2011, an election year, up from 19 incidents in 2010, according to a report published on Thursday, March, 15, by the Journalist Observatory of the Cerigua Agency.
An article published Wednesday, March 14, in the digital newspaper El Faro of El Salvador has stirred up a firestorm of controversy and threats against the newspaper and its reporters, prompting journalists and free press organizations around the world to express concern and show solidarity with their Central American colleagues.
On Thursday, March, 15, a live interview conducted by Globovisión was violently interrupted by members of the community council of Isla de la Culebra, in the state of Carabobo, according to the National Union of Journalists of Caracas.
On Thursday, March, 15, a Venezuelan journalist was publicly threatened with kidnapping while broadcasting live for a TV and radio station in Anzoátegui, reported the news site Noticiasdeaquí.net.
Police in Montreal, Canada, raided a journalist's home after a hospital filed a criminal complaint alleging that the reporter had stolen medical documents, reported the QMI Agency.
An Argentine federal court convicted the newspaper Clarín for publishing an article that supposedly discriminates against women, reported the newspaper La Capital. Published on April, 5, 2009, the article, titled “The child factory: They conceive in numbers and obtain higher benefits from the state," was deemed "offensive" as it "inclined toward discrimination and psychological, sexual, and symbolic violence against women," reported the news agency UPI.
On Sunday, March 11, the group La Piedrita (Little Stone) held a protest at the entrance of television station Globovisión, requesting the Venezuelan government investigate the death of two group members killed in an armed confrontation that occurred in a Caracas neighborhood on Saturday, reported the newspaper El Universo.
Colombian journalist and political leader Argemiro Cárdenas Agudelo was shot to death on Thursday, March 15, reported the Foundation for Press Freedom (FLIP in Spanish).