The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, criticized Brazil's resistance to dealing with its past and the way that state information is being handled, O Estado de S. Paulo reports.
With more than 800 attendees registered, the 6th International Congress for Investigative Journalism held June 30-July 2 and hosted by the Brazilian Association of Investigative Journalism (ABRAJI in Portuguese), was the largest yet. More than half of the participants were journalists from throughout Brazil who came to the conference in São Paulo to help make it one of the country's top such events.
Costa Rica's Congress voted to table a proposed freedom of expression and the press law that would have updated the 1902 press law, and whose approval had been pending for several years, reported the radio station Monumental.
The government of the Mexican state of Veracruz is offering a reward of more than a quarter-million dollars for information about the killing of a journalist, reported El Universal.
The Commission on Planning, Economic Policy and Finance of the House of Deputies in Bolivia announced that it would include the public's recommendations in a proposed telecommunications that has been criticized by press freedom organizations for certain aspects that limit freedom of information, reported Los Tiempos.
The Brazilian magazine Veja and publishing company Editora Abril were sentenced to publish a sort of retraction after reports that linked Islam to terrorism, according to Última Instância.
Journalist Mary Luz Avendaño, corresponsdent in Medellín, Colombia, for the newspaper El Espectador, and Lydia Cacho, a Mexican investigative reporter, received death threats after publishing stories on drug trafficking and human trafficking, respectively, reported IFEX and Article 19.
Luis Horacio Nájera has received a fellowship to study at a prestigious graduate school in Canada, the country that granted the Mexican journalist asylum more than two years ago, IFEX reports.
On July 7 and 8, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and Brazil’s Office of the Comptroller General (CGU) will hold a seminar on policies regulating access to public information in Brasília.
A firebomb was thrown at a truck for the television program Juez Justo TV, which is hosted by ex-police colonel Benedicto Jiménez, reported Panamericana Televisión. The attack occurred in the Peruvian capital of Lima in the wee morning hours of Wednesday, June 29.
The Argentine Journalism Forum (FOPEA in Spanish) denounced a series of attacks and anonymous threats against a journalist in southern Argentina, reported Diario Uno. Mario Sánchez, radio reporter and a board member for the press union in Neuquén in the Patagonia region of Argentina, recently was robbed and his house set on fire, explained El Diario de la Roja. Then, a few days later, the reporter received intimidating phone calls and a death threat, the newspaper added.
Some journalists in Peru have interpreted as velied threats against freedom of expression the words of president-elect Ollanta Humala during a visit to Ecuador when he met with Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa, who has a tense relationship with the press, which he has characterized as "corrupt."