Brazilian journalist Valério Nascimento was found dead on May 3, after having been shot repeatedly in the city of Rio Claro in the interior of Rio de Janeiro state, iG and the Associated Press report. The crime was the second journalist killed on the same day as the celebrations for World Press Freedom Day 2011.
ABC newspaper reports that its journalist, Jorge Torres, is being sued for defamation, libel, and slander for stories alleging misuse of funds by a federal agency in Paraguay.
Journalist Walter Vite, who was convicted April 27 to a year in prison and a $500 fine for allegedly libeling a mayor, has initiated a hunger strike to demand his release, the Associated Press and Ecuadorinmediato report.
Award-winning Colombian journalist Hollman Morris has launched a social media campaign to keep Contravía, his investigative reporting program, on the air. He has asked viewers and his followers on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube to make small donations to support the show, Semana explains.
While activists worldwide celebrated World Press Freedom Day on May 3, the violent death of a Peruvian radio journalist that same day was a stark reminder of the dangers faced by media workers. La República reports that Julio César Castillo Narváez was shot to death in the city of Virú, 340 miles to the northeast of Lima.
A total of 68 journalists have been killed in Mexico since 2000, while another 13 remain missing, says a new report by Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission (CNDH), El Universal reports.
Estado de S. Paulo reports that its journalist, Gabriel Toueg, was briefly detained by subway security in São Paulo to stop him from recording an altercation between the officers and several young women.
Journalists from two Honduran radio stations suffered new acts of intimidation, adding to the climate of increasing violence and threats faced by opposition broadcasters in the country, El Pregón reports.
Against the expectations of Brazil's President Dilma Roussef, the proposed information access law will not be approved Tuesday, May 3, World Press Freedom Day, as originally anticipated. Former president Fernando Collor de Mello, who was impeached in 1992 and is a current senator for the center-right Brazilian Labor Party (PTB), halted the information access bill, reported Folha de S. Paulo.
With less than a week left before a popular vote on judicial reforms and press regulation, President Rafael Correa continued to rail against the media, saying they “deceive, lie,” and are the biggest opposition to the referendum, AFP reports.
Mexico and Honduras have joined the rank of countries where the press is not considered free or independent, according to a Freedom House study released Monday, May 2, reported the Christian Science Monitor. In fact, the report, Freedom of the Press 2011: A Global Survey of Media Independence, found that global press freedom has declined to its lowest levels in more than a decade, with Latin America experiencing the most severe setbacks. The report was released as part of World Press Freedom Day.
Unlike Mexico, where dozens of journalists have been killed in the last decade, Venezuelan journalists don’t work under a climate of constant threats to their lives, however they do face “systematic” pressure from the government, whose supporters are responsible for 28% of the attacks against the press, the Press and Society Institute (IPYS) reports.