Journalists in Mexico and Ecuador had little to celebrate this year as they recognized Journalists' Day this week, according to the newspapers La Vanguardia and Hoy. Mexico, considered one of the world's most dangerous countries to practice journalism, remembered the seven journalists killed in 2011 on Jan. 4. Ecuador remembered a difficult year for freedom of expression on Jan. 5, following President Rafael Correa's aggressive stance against the media.
The Inter American Press Association's annual review of press freedom found 2011 to be one of the most "challenging and tragic years" for the region's journalists, the association (IAPA) said in a statement.
An Ecuadorian judge's decision to sentence Hoy newspaper director Jaime Mantilla Anderson to three months in prison for libel drew condemnation from the Inter American Commission of Human Rights' Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression, the Inter American Press Association and the Committee to Protect Journalists, reported the news agency EFE.
The Brazilian newspaper Diário do Litoral claimed that its journalists have been intimidated following the publication of a story accusing a beach condominium's security team in the southern coastal city of Guarujá of operating as a "militia," the newspaper stated in a letter released by the website Red on Jan. 2.
Argentina's Arab community spoke out against against a Dec. 31, 2011, cartoon published in the newspaper Clarín, where a man in sandals, turban, and a belt of dynamite was selling imported fireworks, reported the news agency UPI.
Three Guatemalan journalists and a photographer are among 52 persons accused of participating in the kidnapping, torture, and killing of diplomats during this Central American country's civil war that lasted from 1960 to 1996.
The Brazilian Senate recently bucked a 2009 ruling by the South American country's Supreme Court when it approved a bill reestablishing the requirement that all practicing journalists have an advanced degree.
The Ecuadorian blogger who coined the tag "30S" or "30-S" to follow tweets about the police protest on Sept. 30, 2010, came out against the government's attempt to trademark 30S, reported the newspapers El País and El Universo.
A TV news host in the Dominican Republic quit the station where he worked, live on the air, after station executives refused to air a video showing a politician's bodyguard shove a reporter, according to the newspaper Diario Libre.
In a landmark decision for the press, the Brazilian Supreme Court of Justice ruled that a suspect's "presumed innocence" does not impede the press from reporting critical facts about the case.
On Dec. 11, the Venezuelan National Association of Journalists (CNP in Spanish) released a statement expressing concern over the $2 million fine the government levied against opposition television station Globovisión.
Deputies from the Argentine political party the Front for Victory approved a controversial bill declaring the production and importation of newsprint to be a "public interest," according to the newspaper La Nación.