A Guatemalan subsidiary of the Spanish hydroelectric company Hidralia Energía released a warning that it would take legal and criminal actions against those who spread defamation and libel against the company, reported the Center of Informative Reports of Guatemala.
A day after the organization Amnesty International complained in its annual report about freedom of press restrictions in Venezuela, the U.S. government said that the Hugo Chavez administration has been persecuting the Venezuelan press, in a Human Rights report published on Thursday, May 24, reported the portal Terra.
In a report by the U.S. Department of State, the U.S. heavily criticized the Argentine government for limiting freedom of press in the country, and said that there is too much violence against the press and opposition journalists, accusing the government for being responsible for several measures that do not allow for freedom of expression in Argentina, reported the newspaper Clarín.
In what appears to be a measure to silence the Ecuadorian press, President Rafael Correa asked for Ecuadorian citizens to boycott the press, reported the news agency AFP.
Tangled in an everlasting battle against the Ecuadorian press, the Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa attacked and discredited the work of journalists once again during an interview with the founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, in the program “The World Tomorrow,” on Tuesday, May 22, reported the news outlet Europa Press.
Beyond recognizing the serious crisis of safety and security for journalists in Latin America and the Caribbean, the 10th annual Austin Forum on Journalism in the Americas, held May 20-22 in Austin, Texas, served as a platform to launch ideas about how to solve the problem of insecurity. The largest ever Forum, with more than 70 participants representing the Caribbean and most countries in the Americas, was themed "Safety and Protection for Journalists, Bloggers, and Citizen Journalists."
In the annual Amnesty International 2012 report presented in London on Wednesday, May 23, the group said that there "were new restrictions" to freedom of expression in Venezuela, with journalists facing fines and myriad accusations, reported the newspaper El Universal and the news agency EFE.
During the last day of the 10th Austin Forum on Journalism in the Americas, held May 20-22, the participants gathered into four groups to discuss different and important topics about this year's theme: "Security and Protection for Journalists, Blogger, and Citizen Journalists."
Latin American journalists increasingly are facing legal threats to freedom of expression, according to experts on the panel "The Legal Threats to Press Freedom: From the Old Criminal Defamation Laws to the Newest Attempts to Regulate the Internet," during the 10th annual Austin Forum on Journalism in the Americas organized by the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas and the Open Society Fondations, held May 20-22 in Austin, Texas.
The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) has called on the Venezuelan government to end its defamation campaign against the newspaper Notitarde, IAPA announced on its website on Friday, May 18. According to IAPA, the campaign is a "a malicious discrediting maneuver" initiated by federal and state legislators of the ruling party.
The Bolivian Senate has proposed a bill that would regulate social networks, and would be attached to the Law to Fight Against Racism and All Forms of Discrimination, reported the news site Eju TV.
Brazilian radio journalist José Luiz Datena, said on Tuesday, May 15, on his morning radio show that the station was suffering pressure from the mayor of São Paulo, Gilberto Kassab, due to the accusations that the journalist made on his TV program Brasil Urgente, according to the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo. Because of this, the journalist threatened to go off the air, reported Yahoo.