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.
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.
Colombia’s Foundation for Press Freedom (FLIP for its acronym in Spanish) rejected threats against journalists Jineth Bedoya Lima and Salud Hernández Mora, as well as political and social leaders, allegedly proffered by a block of the illegal armed group Águilas Negras. The organization also demanded that authorities guarantee protection so that the journalists can continue with their work.