In a joint operation, federal and civil police from the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Norte arrested on July 2 and 3 five suspects accused of killing community journalist Ednaldo Filgueira, who also blogged and was president of the local chapter of the Workers Party, reported the news site No Minuto.
Mexican journalist Ángel Castillo Corona, columnist for the digital newspaper Portal, was killed along with his teen-age son, early Sunday morning, July 3, when they were assaulted while driving in the city of Tianguistenco in Mexico State, Portal reported.
After the wave of journalist killings in Honduras in 2010 that prompted President Porfirio Lobo to ask the U.S. FBI for help, so far in 2011 three journalists have been killed. Adán Benítez, veteran host and journalist who worked for more than 16 years in radio and television, was shot to death on his way home in the city of La Ceiba on Monday, July 4, reported La Prensa Gráfica.
The freeing of all Cuba's imprisoned dissident journalists in recent months generated expectations about a possible relaxation of strict censorship rules and zero tolerance for opposition under the more than 50 years of leadership by the Castro brothers in Cuba. However, freedom of expression organizations are denouncing a new wave of attacks on independent Cuban journalists, an indication that nothing in fact has changed and the regime of censorship is continuing, according to news reports.
Reporters Without Borders has called for the immediate release of two Haitian journalists who were jailed June 22 by authorities for no apparent valid reason, the International Freedom of Expression Exchange reports.
"You cannot curtail the right of information and of the media to investigate," said judge Manuel Aguirre during the ruling issued Thursday, June 30. The judge argued that the role of the media is fundamental for democracy, explained ABC Digital.
Antuérpio Pettersen Filho, blogger in the Brazilian state of Espírito Santo and editor of digital newspaper Grito Cidadão, received death threats after publishing a report accusing a police official of being part of a militia, reported the blog Vi o Mundo.
The National Telecommunications Commission (CONATEL in Spanish) of Venezuela has filed another complaint against opposition television station Globovisión for "inciting hatred" for covering a deadly prison riot in mid-June in the northern state of Miranda, according to the newspaper El Tiempo.
Guatemalan journalist Jorge Arquímides Manchamé Palma was killed in the city of Esquipulas, in the southeastern Guatemalan department of Chiquimula, on Sunday, July 3, reported the newspaper Prensa Libre.
Discussions of innovations in media, technology, languages and platforms were just some of the central themes when journalists from throughout Brazil gathered June 30–July 2 in São Paulo at the 6th International Congress of Investigative Journalism organized by the Brazilian Association of Investigative Journalism. The program covered dozens of topics, ranging from the format of news on tablets to the practice of independent journalism on the web.
Independent journalist Luis Eduardo Gómez, a witness for prosecutors' investigation into links between politicians and paramilitaries, was killed by two gunmen who shot him from a motorcycle last week in Arboletes, Antioquia, in northwest Colombia, BBC reports.
"Passionate" and "visionary" are the words Brant Houston used to describe Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas founder and director Rosental Calmon Alves, who was honored during an homage at the Brazilian Association of Investigative Journalism's 6th International Congress for Investigative Journalism, on July 1.