The Attorney General's Office of Colombia has opened a preliminary investigation against Bogotá's public TV channel, Canal Capital, related to its coverage of the protests summoned by Bogotá's mayor Gustavo Petro Urrego, the channel said in a press release.
Ángel Santiesteban-Prats, the Cuban author of the critical blog Los hijos que nadie quiso (also available in English as "The Children Nobody Wanted") completed the first year of detention of his five-year sentence on Feb. 28, reported Reporters Without Borders, calling once again for the blogger’s release from prison.
The United States State Department published on Thursday their annual report on human rights, where it strongly criticized the restrictions on press freedoms and freedom of expression in Venezuela and Ecuador. In the midst of a political crisis in Venezuela, the report highlighted that the Venezuelan government “continued taking actions to impede on freedom of expression and restrict press freedoms.”
News organization Grupo Editorial Noroeste, from the Mexican state of Sinaloa, demanded on Feb. 25 protection from federal agencies for journalists who were threatened for reporting stories on recently arrested drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán, reported Noroeste.
Two months ago, the Mexican government purchased a 14-page advertorial that ran in TIME magazine. Now, President Peña Nieto will appear on the cover of TIME’s international edition released today, posing above the headline “Saving Mexico”— an editorial choice that has sparked controversy and accusations that TIME has essentially sold good publicity to the Mexican government.
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro accused foreign media and the U.S. government of misrepresenting the country and of participating in a collective plot to overthrow the Venezuelan government, Bloomberg reported.
A group of journalists and defenders of freedom of expression called for Mexican citizens to protest the insecurity and violence faced by press workers in the country on Sunday, Feb. 23. The group announced their call to action through a press statement given in Veracruz on Sunday, Feb. 16.
Álvaro Dias, senator for the Social Democratic Party of Brazil (PSDB-PR), asked the Brazilian Senate on Feb. 10 to consider giving protection to Fábio Porchat, the director of Porta dos Fundos, due to various death threats made against the satirist Brazilian humor site, G1 reported on Feb. 11.
More than 20 years after the fall of the dictatorships and civil wars that dominated Latin America, the region continues to be marked by a strong retaliation against the press, according to Reporters Without Borders’ (RSF) most recent annual index on the state of press freedom, which was published on Feb. 12.
Ecuador was the only Latin American country to be featured on the Committee to Project Journalists' annual Risk List, in which the organization highlights countries were press freedoms have been in decline.