Brazilian journalist Everaldo Fogaça was threatened by the head of the Federal Police, Eduardo Brun de Souza, according to the newspaper O Globo. Fogaça was testifying at police headquarters after being indicted for publishing on his news site the manifesto from a student group on strike at the Federal University of Rondônia.
In the northern Mexican state of Durango, four strangers broke into a journalist's home the night of Oct. 14 while she and her mother were asleep, reported the Press and Society Institute (IPYS in Spanish). The intruders locked the two women in a room, and after spending several hours in the house, they stole the journalist's computer, car, and credentials, along with personal photos, underwear and perfume, IPYS said.
Rapporteurs for freedom of expression from the United Nations and Organization of American States denounced the Mexican state's slow response to prosecute those that commit crimes against journalists. In the presentation of the report, "Freedom of Expression in Mexico," both organizations noted that violence against journalists in the country was the worst in the continent and the fifth overall in the world, reported EFE.
Police arrested two suspects in connection with the killing of Brazilian journalist Auro Ida on Oct. 17 in Cuiabá, the capital of Mato Grosso, reported Diário de Cuiabá.
A reporting team from TV Globovisión was attacked by a group of employees from the Venezuelan city of Plaza on Wednesday, Oct. 19, as they were covering protests in the city of Guarenas, close to the capital city of Caracas, according to the Press and Society Institute.
Honduran journalist Karla Rivas became the first woman honored with the 2011 Peter Mackler Award for Courageous and Ethical Journalism awarded by Reporters Without Borders and the Global Media Forum on Oct. 20, announced the organizations.
The journalist Juan Carlos Calderon, co author of the book El Gran Hermano (Big Brother), was threatened via telephone by an anonymous source, according to Fundamedios. The journalist was threatened: “You will be next.”
The Chilean Association of Foreign Correspondents issued a formal complaint against the Chilean police for kidnapping and attacking journalists on Friday, Oct. 14, reported the newspaper El Comercio. This is the first accusation of kidnapping and targeting of journalists by the police since the end of the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship in 1990, reported the newspaper Folha de São Paulo.
Carlos Curcio, a columnist for the Brazilian newspaper Jornal Cidade, was found dead on the morning of Oct. 13, in his apartment in Rio Claro, in the interior of the state of São Paulo, reported the website Terra.
On Oct. 9, Brazilian journalist Antonio Carlos Ferrari was attacked and threatened at an event at the Itaporã city hall in the southern state of Mato Grosso do Sul after reporting on a local family accused of maintaining slave labor, according to the website Dourado News.
Luis García Heras and Sandro Malca Baca, two reporters with the station Radio Armonía in Peru, said they received death threats from another station's owner and radio host, reported the Press and Society Institute.
The newspaper El Sol del Sur published a leaflet denouncing telephone threats it received, the sabotage of its website, and police aggression against reporters covering the expulsion of street vendors in Cuidad Madero in the border state of Tamaulipas.