After four journalists from investigative journalism site Armando.info left Venezuela due to a looming defamation lawsuit, an important group of journalists and organizations that defend freedom of expression and the press throughout Latin America have signed a statement warning about the serious deterioration of the conditions facing the Venezuelan press.
Due to what they say is a lack of judicial and procedural guarantees, four prominent Venezuelan journalists who were criminally sued for continued aggravated defamation and aggravated injury (injuria), chose to leave Venezuela, according to the statement they sent to the national and foreign press.
Raúl Velázquez, Cuban executive director of the Cuban Institute for Freedom of Expression and of the Press (ICLEP, for its initials in Spanish), has been missing for six days.
A member of the Colombian Supreme Court expressed his disagreement with the ruling of his court’s Civil Chamber that upholds a decision forcing media company Publicaciones Semana to reveal the sources behind one of its publications’ articles.
Given that new forms of communication –such as social networks, platforms and digital news sites, among others– pose new challenges to the exercise and defense of the right to freedom of expression, a recent study by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) ) suggests reviewing the jurisprudence of the Inter-American Human Rights System in that regard.
Following widespread concern from journalists and press advocates after the Colombian Supreme Court ruled a media company must reveal communication with its sources, the country’s Inspector General said it would intervene in the case.
The National Association of Bolivian Journalists (ANPB, for its initials in Spanish) and the Association of Journalists of La Paz (APLP) have declared an “emergency” in rejection of articles of the country’s new Penal Code the entities say could be used against professionals in retaliation for their work.
U.S. immigration officials have agreed to take another look at the case of a Mexican journalist who fled his country nine years ago due to threats on his life. The Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) agreed to reconsider an appeal filed on behalf of Emilio Gutiérrez Soto and his son. An El Paso immigration judge denied […]
*This story has been updated to include context concerning the current environment for journalists in Mexico and to clarify the Dec. 7 events. A Mexican journalist who waited eight years for an asylum hearing in the United States was saved by an emergency stay of deportation earlier this week shortly after officials from Immigration and […]
Freedom of expression advocates are looking for answers after a British journalist hoping to cover the World Trade Organization conference in Buenos Aires was deported from Argentina. At dawn on Dec. 8, Sally Burch was sent back to Quito, Ecuador where she works as executive-editor at Agencia Latinoamericana de Información. According to the Guardian, she was included on a list of 63 people banned from attending the conference from Dec. 10 to 13.
Three Latin American journalists appear on the Committee to Protect Journalist’s (CPJ) annual census of journalists imprisoned around the world. Guatemalan Jerson Antonio Xitumul Morales, Ecuadoran Enrique Rosales Ortega and Venezuelan Braulio Jatar are three of the 262 journalists imprisoned around the world, according to the census, which was published Dec. 13.
In Mexico, journalists live under the terror of violence and although the government has created mechanisms to protect these professionals, impunity and insecurity continue in the country. These are some of the conclusions of David Kaye, UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, and Edison Lanza, Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), after a one-week mission to Mexico.