Mexican radio and TV media owners filed a petition asking the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to investigate and review the pending sanctions against radio and television stations imposed by election officials, reported the newspaper Milenio.
After pardoning the journalists in a $40 million libel lawsuit against the newspaper El Universo, Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa once again attacked the press, saying that in Latin America there exists a "media dictatorship" and that now is the time for "free citizens to rebel against this abuse," reported the news agency EFE.
After being offered asylum in Panama to avoid a $40 million libel lawsuit and three years in prison, one of the owners of the Ecuadoran newspaper El Universo, Carlos Pérez Barriga, arrived in Panama on Saturday, March 3, and met with the country's chancellor, Roberto Henríquez, reported the news agency Ansa Latina. Pérez had sought refuge in the Panamanian embassy in Quito, Ecuador, on Feb. 16.
The regional court in Cundinamarca, Colombia, upheld a criminal libel sentence against a Colombian journalist on Wednesday, Feb. 29, for publishing an editorial criticizing former governor and senator María Leonor Serrano de Camargo, reported the Press Freedom Foundation (FLIP in Spanish).
A Colombian activist and journalist who received death threats after uploading a video to YouTube showing police violence has decided to flee from his native city of Huila, Colombia, reported the Press Freedom Foundation (FLIP in Spanish).
A judge in Curitiba, Brazil, ordered the Atlético Paranaense soccer team to allow journalist Osmar Antônio to do his job, otherwise the team faces a $29,000 fine for each act against the reporter, who works for Banda B, according to UOL Esporte. The decision was published Wednesday, Feb. 29.
Milton Coleman, president of the Inter American Press Association (IAPA) and an editor of The Washington Post, visited Honduras on Tuesday, Feb. 28, to talk with President Porfirio Lobo about a proposed bill to regulate the Honduran media, reported Proceso.
The Florida city of Lauderdale Lakes has sent local blogger Chaz Stevens a "cease-and-desist" legal notice, saying the city will sue for civil damages if the blogger continues his "repeated false allegations, threats, attempted extortion, slander, libel, defamation, and invasion of privacy," reported the Broward-Palm Beach New Times.
On Feb. 17th, more than 300 newsroom employees of the Philadelphia Media Network (PMN) signed a statement demanding that the journalistic integrity of their work be upheld as the network negotiates its sale with private investor groups, reported the Philadelphia Inquirer. The statement also expressed “dismay” that journalists’ coverage of the sale has been compromised and censored by corporate management, said Poynter and Politico.
After international outcry, on Monday, Feb. 27, Ecuadoran president Rafael Correa announced his decision to pardon journalists in the $40 million libel suit against the newspaper El Universo, its three owners and a former newspaper columnist, who were facing three years in prison. The president also dismissed the fine against the authors of a book detailing the president's alleged acts of nepotism, reported the Associated Press.
The Ecuadoran government announced that it would not comply with the request the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) made to suspend the libel sentences against the owners of the newspaper El Universo, Carlos, César and Nicolás Pérez, and former opinion page editor Emilio Palacio, calling the requested measures “inapplicable,” reported the NGO Fundamedios.
Lúcio Flávio Pinto, four-time winner of Brazil's most important journalism award, the Esso, said he would no longer appeal the libel lawsuit in which he was sentenced to pay roughly $4,600 in moral damages for articles accusing the owner of a company of landgrabbing in Pará, a region in northern Brazil, according to the newspaper Estado de S. Paulo.