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.
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.