Less than a week after a Brazilian court prevented a journalist from criticizing the administration of the governor of Mato Grosso, a court in Pará forced a blogger to remove all stories from her website about a city councilman from Belém, the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo reported on Tuesday, March 20.
Various Venezuelan press associations issued statements criticizing the court decision that ordered the media to publish a technical report supplying evidence for previous stories published about water contamination in the central region of the country.
During an interview in Spain, Ecuadoran president Rafael Correa questioned the funding of the non-governmental organization Human Rights Watch (HRW), reported the newspaper La Hora. "Do you know who funds Human Rights Watch, is it the Sisters of Charity, the Sinaloa Cartel?" Correa said to the Spanish journalist who was interviewing him.
The Mexican newspaper Diario de Juárez accused the Department of Public Safety of refusing to grant official advertising to the newspaper since February 20.
Representatives of the Salvadoran gangs MS-13 and Neighborhood 18 denied in a public statement that leaders of their groups made a deal with the government to lower their number of killings and crimes, as was published in the newspaper El Faro, reported ContraPunto.
Ernesto Pérez Balladares, the ex-president of Panama, filed a civil lawsuit against the newspaper La Prensa for $5.5 million, reported the newspaper La Estrella.
On Tuesday, March 20, the governor of the Brazilian state of Piauí prevented journalists and press officers from attending a national Congress meeting, reported the news site Portal Imprensa.
Just seven months from the upcoming presidential elections in Venezuela, attacks against the press have intensified, according to Reporters Without Borders.
A Bolivian journalist was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison for defamation stemming from a article that linked a lawyer linked with corruption, reported the newspaper La Razón. This is the first criminal sentence against a reporter in Bolivia since 1997, added the news agency EFE.
Police in Montreal, Canada, raided a journalist's home after a hospital filed a criminal complaint alleging that the reporter had stolen medical documents, reported the QMI Agency.
An Argentine federal court convicted the newspaper Clarín for publishing an article that supposedly discriminates against women, reported the newspaper La Capital. Published on April, 5, 2009, the article, titled “The child factory: They conceive in numbers and obtain higher benefits from the state," was deemed "offensive" as it "inclined toward discrimination and psychological, sexual, and symbolic violence against women," reported the news agency UPI.
During a conference in Vienna, Austria, Bolivian President Evo Morales said there is "too much freedom of expression" in his country and that independent news outlets in Bolivia are his main opposition, reported the radio station FM Bolivia.