The detention of three Venezuelan reporters on Nov. 2 by the Military Police, which lasted over seven hours, continues to generate outrage among the media community after it was discovered that the government had summoned the journalists to the conference where they were detained.
So far this year, there have been 71 cases of censorship of journalists and media in Venezuela, meaning 87 percent more cases than there were over the same period last year, according to Venezuelan organizations that defend freedom of expression and information access that spoke about the situation in their country on Oct. 31 before the Inter American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) during its 149th session.
At least 15 articles of Ecuador's new Organic Penal Code, partially approved by the National Assembly, could limit freedom of expression and turn into a tool to persecute citizens critical of the government, according to a report published by NGO Fundamedios.
Ismael López, a Nicaraguan journalist with news site Confidencial and its sister TV show Esta Semana, has accused the Nicaraguan Army of spying on him, according to the independent English-language online newspaper The Nicaragua Dispatch.
The International Press Institute has urged the Caribbean countries of Aruba, Curaçao and Saint Martin to examine and change their criminal defamation laws.
Bolivian journalist Raúl Peñaranda had to quit his newspaper to save it.
The last six months represented the worst semester for journalists in the Americas in the last five years, according to the Inter American Press Association, news agency EFE reported. The killing of journalists and the various government measures that restrict access to information were some of the reasons that IAPA cited during its General Assembly, which took place in Denver last weekend.
The concentration of the media by “autocratic” governments is one of the “the greatest obstacles for the freedom of the press in the western hemisphere during the last six months of the year” and the killing of 14 journalists represents one of the highest numbers in the last 20 years, the Inter American Press Association noted during the conclusion of its 69th General Assembly in Denver last weekend.
Viltor García, a bodyguard for cable channel director Karen Rottman, had just finished his shift on Oct. 19 when he was shot and killed by attackers in a vehicle with tinted glass windows in Guatemala City, informed Reporters without Borders (RSF). Rottman is the director of Vea Canal, an independent cable channel critical of the nation's administration.
The Cuban government appointed new editors for its two main newspapers, Granma and Juventud Rebelde, describing the move as part of a “renewal” process to improve the country’s official press, BBC News reported.
By Alsha Khan In the last twelve months in Venezuela, there has been a decline of Internet freedom, showing a substantial increase in the censorship of opinions about political events, like the death of Hugo Chávez and the presidential elections in April, according to the report Freedom on the Net published by Freedom House in […]
Update 10/18/2013: According to Reporters without Borders, all three journalists, along with Denis Noa Martinez and Pablo Morales Marchán (correspondents for Hablemos Press) who had been arrested Sunday, were released on Oct. 14.