Los Urabeños and Los Rastrojos, paramilitary groups in Colombia, have published hits lists threatening a combined ten journalists with consequences if they don’t immediately abandon their posts and leave the towns where they work.
Uruguayan journalist and lawyer Edison Lanza was confirmed before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) as the new Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression, replacing Colombian Catalina Botero. Lanza began on October 6 a three-year term, taking over the Special Rapporteur's Office at the Organization of American States (OAS).
The Organization of American States' special rapporteur for Freedom of Expression released a statement in which it “express[ed] its deepest concern for the deterioration of the right to freedom of expression in Venezuela.”
On September 13, the Guatemalan government posted photographs of an unpublished article planned to run three days later on the newspaper elPeriódico, raising questions as to whether or not the government had been spying on the newsroom.
A leading Venezuelan newspaper that was recently sold to anonymous investors appears to be shifting its opposition editorial line weeks after pledging not to. The managing editor at El Universal, Elides Rojas, told the International Press Institute (IPI) that the newspaper’s new president had “ordered a complete revision of the opinion section” and had suspended or dismissed editorial staff.
When Edison Lanza becomes the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights’ Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression in October he will step into a political battle in the Organization of American States (OAS) over the role of his office in the region.
A group of 60 journalists in Nicaragua’s capital city gathered in the offices of the national police to demand investigations into recent attacks on the press, which they allege are going unaddressed.
Charges of espionage that could result in a 30-year jail sentence were brought against two journalists of the Bolivian newspaper La Razón for publishing alleged state secrets leaked to a reporter by an anonymous source.
Advances on the digital revolution, attacks on journalists, and state-media conflict have marked journalism in Latin America and the Caribbean, according to UNESCO's 2014 report “World Trends in Freedom of Expression and Media Development”. The document highlights state harassment of journalists, challenges reforming outdated media laws, media concentration, lack of journalistic resources and training, and drug-related journalistic deaths as some of the major problems facing journalists in the region.
After 32 years of print publication, the Ecuadorian daily newspaper Hoy announced that it will stop printing, buckling under government policy which many allege intends to cripple independent press. Hoy, known as an opposition publication, will continue with digital publication.
Investigative journalist Mark Bassant was forced to leave Trinidad and Tobago last week after receiving death threats, the International Press Institute (IPI) informed.
The government of Bolivian city of Santa Cruz de la Sierra canceled the ads that usually run in local newspaper El Deber after the latter published in its website a video that shows the city's mayor Percy Fernández Áñez touching the leg of a journalist sitting next to him, the Inter American Press Association (IAPA) said last week.