The following account is a testimony from Marcela Turati, of the Red de Periodistas de a Pie (On-the-ground Journalists Network), one of the organizers of the unprecedented demonstrations in Mexico protesting the violence against journalists.
More than 1,000 reporters, editors, camera operators and photographers took to the streets in Mexico City and other towns in 11 states in defense of freedom of expression, calling for an end to violence against journalists, which has claimed at least 64 lives in the last decade, and left another 11 missing, reported the Latin American Herald Tribune and CBS News.
The organization Human Rights Watch (HRW) said it is important to change parts of the proposed communications law in Ecuador in order to protect freedom of expression.
Mexican photogrpaher Alejandro Cossío, of the weekly ZETA in Tijuana, was awarded for his work “Mexico at the Breaking Point,” announced the Ibero-American New Journalism Foundation (FNPI).
Rodolfo Flórez, who has been missing since July 9, was found in Cali on Aug. 5 in good health, but confused and upset, reported the Foundation for Press Freedom (FLIP) via IFEX.
Ex-Cuban president, Fidel Castro, who reappeared before international press in a special Parliamentary session on Saturday, Aug. 7, gave his first interview in four years to a group of Venezuelan journalists, to whom he spoke about the possibility of nuclear war, U.S. President Barack Obama, and the Afghanistan War, reported the newspaper La Jornada and the Cuban News Agency.
Colombian Carina Solano Padilla received the Hellman/Hammett grant, from the organization Human Rights Watch, for journalists and writers who have faced political persecution, reported the news agency DPA.
After five and four years, respectively, in operation, the electronic daily newspaper Clave Digital and the printed weekly Clave in the Dominican Republic published on Aug. 5 their last editions, reported EFE.
The Chamber of Deputies is considering a bill to regulate the distribution of official advertising to media outlets, Clarín reports. In June, Clarín accused the executive of using ad spending to manipulate coverage.
The Prosecutor’s Office in Mato Grosso state has charged politicians and businessmen from the city of Juína with kidnapping, false imprisonment, and illegal restraint, after allegedly sequestering several reporters and activists who were trying to film a documentary on deforestation and the Enawene Nawe indigenous peoples, Folha de S. Paulo and Greenpeace report. The attackers feared they would help the tribe in land disputes with local farmers.
As Mexican journalists are finalizing the details of their protest this Saturday against violence and threats against the country’s media workers, President Felipe Calderón met with media owners and editors to pledge federal government support, El Universal and La Jornada report.
The Prosecutor’s Office has opened a case into this week’s molotov cocktail bomb attack against the offices of the newspaper Las Noticias, El Universal reports.