Dissident Cuban journalist Julio César Gálvez, who was freed in July 2010 by Cuba after seven years in prison, complained that the living conditions of his exile in Spain are not what he was promised.
Dominican Republic journalist Francisco Frías, the director of Cabrera FM and the digital newspaper Prensa Libre Nagua, was shot by the police while covering a funeral, Terra reports.
The Supreme Court of Peru invalidated a lower court ruling which cleared a former mayor accused of killing a journalist in 2004, La República reports. Luiza Valdez, ex mayor of Coronel Portillo, will be tried again for allegedly masterminding the murder of journalist Alberto Rivera Fernández.
El Salvador’s Human Rights ombudsman called on the police and Attorney General to open an investigation into the series of threats received by journalists at Radio Victoria, in the central department of Cabañas, La Prensa Gráfica reports.
As violence from the bloody drug war increases and the dead fill morgues and line mass graves in Mexico, two journalists have each launched books that seek to describe the horrors of the conflict and unravel the corruption that is hidden behind it.
After 20 days in prison, journalist Maritânia Forlin, suspected of working with drug dealers in Paraná state, was released by police pending her trial and announced that she would launch a book of memoirs to defend her image, Folha de S. Paulo reports.
Freelance journalist Solly Boussidan was arrested by Russian authorities Friday, Jan. 28, in the city of Sochi, accused of reporting without the necessary accreditation, reported the newspaper Estado de S. Paulo, the news outlet with with which he collaborates.
Tension between the private media and the government of President Hugo Chávez is nothing new. However, U.S. diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks (cable 10CARACAS219) reveal that the conflict is now such that the U.S. ambassador in Caracas believes Chávez is “is close to his goal of 'domesticating' or eliminating the remaining free and independent media in Venezuela,” El País reports.
A Venezuelan court sentenced Francisco Contreras to 15 years in prison for his role in the April 2010 kidnapping of Globovisión journalist Luis Núñez, El Universal reports.
Radio announcer Ivan Carlos de Oliveira Silva was arrested Jan. 26 in the northeastern Brazilian city of Salvador, Bahia, and charged with extorting his former boss: businessman Diogo Medrado, son of Federal Deputy Marcos Medrado of the Democratic Labor Party (PDT). According to A Tarde, the host was fired from the younger Medrado’s station in December and had allegedly asked the businessman for almost $90,000 in cash and a $40,000 car to not release unflattering recordings.
Dissident journalist Guillermo Fariñas – famous worldwide for hunger striking for 135-days before Cuban released more than 50 political prisoners – was arrested for the second time in less than 24 hours for demonstrating in front of the jail where other dissidents were still being held, Reuters reports. He was freed after five hours, The Associated Press reports.
Honduran President Porfirio Lobo announced that he had received an offer from the U.S. government to help investigate the deaths of ten journalists who were killed in 2010, EFE reports.