Prominent Haitian journalist Michele Montas, along with three former political prisoners, has filed a criminal lawsuit against former dictator Jean Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier, accusing him of torture, illegal detention, and violations of civil and political rights, reported the Committee to Protect Journalists.
A T.V. crew for Milenio Televisión was attacked and restrained by a mob while working on an investigative report outside the ranch of the leader of an electricians union, in the town of Tetepango, north of Mexico City, reported local media.
In 2010, the Mexican media faced a spate of shootings, bombings, and kidnappings, but the new year has inaugurated a more subtle, but nonetheless effective, type of attack on the press: criminals and political groups stealing the identity of media companies to intimidate and spread false information, the Center for Journalism and Public Ethics (CEPET) reports.
The Nicaraguan newspaper El Nuevo Diario reported that its journalists were threatened after publishing articles about supposed corruption in the government of President Daniel Ortega, according to the local press. The cases of corruption and nepotism are related to the Finance Ministry and the equivalent of the IRS, the newspaper said.
Bolivia's presidential spokesman, Iván Canelas, accused the editor of the Paraguayan newspaper ABC Color, Aldo Zuccolillo, and a Paraguayan senator of helping the ex-governor of Tarija, Mario Cossío Cortez, flee the country, reported the newspapers Los Tiempos and Opinión.
The newspaper Novo Jornal reports that its journalists were not allowed to leave the offices of businessman Augusto Caldar Targino, ex director of the Rio Grande do Norte’s consumer protection agency, while he threatened and berated them. (Listen to a recording of the incident in Portuguese here.)
Honduran prosecutors are pursuing a complaint by a journalist and photographer from La Prensa newspaper who were assaulted and kicked out of a public building while covering a teacher protest in San Pedro Sula, the second largest city in the county.
Three managers of the Brazilian soccer team Palmeiras attacked news photographer Thiago Vieira, of the newspaper Agora (owned by media company Folha), because they felt "offended" by comments sent out via Twitter, reported Folha.com.
The Nicaraguan newspaper El Nuevo Diario reported that its journalists were threatened after publishing articles about supposed corruption in the government of President Daniel Ortega, according to the local press. The cases of corruption and nepotism are related to the Finance Ministry and the equivalent of the IRS, the newspaper said.
Bolivian prosecutor Marcelo Soza has ordered the media to reveal the source of a video in which a key witness in a terrorism investigation was allegedly paid to flee the country, Jornadanet reports.
Clarín and La Nación newspapers report that for five hours, 50 demonstrators obstructed the circulation of their Saturday editions by blocking trucks leaving the papers’ printing plants. The Argentine Association of Journalistic Entities (ADEPA) called this “one of the most serious attacks on press freedom in recent times in Argentina.”
A new study on the state of press freedom in Mexico says the growing violence in Mexico is so brutal, it has made problems like censorship, lack of training, and regulation pale in comparison.