The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) and several other international press organizations took the opportunity to express their mounting concern over the state of freedom of expression in Argentina and Ecuador during a meeting of the Coordinating Committee of Press Freedom Organizations, which took place on July 12 in Santiago, Chile, reported the news website Martí on Tuesday, Aug. 7.
In the state of Mato Grosso, in central-western Brazil, two Brazilian television stations were fined by the electoral court for broadcasting unfavorable reports about the administration of Mayor Juarez Costa of the city of Sinop, reported the newspaper Diário de Cuiabá on Thursday, Aug. 9.
Journalists received a threatening letter in a sealed envelope at a radio station in Young, Uruguay, on Aug. 7, reported the newspaper El País.
Venezuelan journalists from private news outlets were not allowed to cover a presidential event on Monday, Aug. 6, reported El Universal.
Currently in Brazil there are more than 4,000 licensed active community radio stations. If non-authorized radio stations were included, this number would drastically increase. The process for granting broadcasting licenses, however, is slow: in some cases, it can take 10 years to get a broadcast license. As such, it's not rare to find cases such as that of José Eduardo Rocha Santos, owner of a community radio in the state of Sergipe, who was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison for operating a radio station without a license.
Officials of the Venezuelan National Guard seized the camera and deleted the work of a photographer who was covering violence in a park in the city of Barinas, in southeastern Venezuela, reported the National Union of Journalists on Friday, August 3.
In an attempt to block the circulation of the Panamanian newspaper La Prensa, construction workers besieged the publication's offices late in the evening Thursday, Aug. 2, until the early morning of Friday, Aug. 3, according to the newspaper.
Investigative journalist Lydia Cacho has fled Mexico on the heals of new death threats against the journalist, reported Fox News Latino on Friday, Aug. 3.
In an editorial published Thursday, Aug. 2, the newspaper El Observador criticized the Uruguayan government of issuing a decree that censors violent images prior to their publication in the news.
On Thursday, August 2, the Venezuelan National Electoral Council (CNE in Spanish) said that it would investigate two TV stations and two newspapers in the country for allegedly violating the rules of the presidential elections, which will take place in October 2012, reported the newspaper El Nacional.
On Tuesday, July 31, the Ecuadorian magazine Vanguardia was once again raided as a public official from the Ministry of Labor Relations who confiscated the magazine's computers, furniture, and equipment. During the raid, the journalists of the magazine, which opposes President Rafael Correa's government, were not allowed to back up or save their research, reported the news outlet Voz de América and the newspaper El Comercio.
An Argentine journalist was censored by the TV channel C5N,when President Cristina Kirchner prohibited the TV channel from letting the journalist participate in a news program, reported Perfil.