Hardly seven months have gone by and 2011 is already the most "tragic year in the last two decades for the Latin American press."
The junior soccer team Atlético Tubarão, located in the Brazilian state of Santa Catarina, attacked journalist Eduardo Ventura who was covering a game for Rádio Santa Catarina and channel Unisul TV, reported Diário Sul.
In a São Paulo court, six witnesses testified in a civil case of the death of journalist Luiz Eduardo da Rocha Merlino, who was tortured and killed 40 years ago during the Brazilian military dictatorship (1964-1985), according to Agência Brasil.
The ex-director of the Liberal political party in Colombia, Francisco Ferney Tapasco González, is going to be tried in the killing of the assistant editor of the newspaper La Patria, Orlando Sierra.
A man suspected of killing political journalist Auro Ida was arrested by the police July 25 in the neighborhood of Cuiabá, Mato Grosso where the crime occurred, G1 reports. Soon after, the 19-year-old man was released by the police when the victim’s girlfriend – the principal witness to the crime – failed to recognize him, Terra explains. The police say he is still under investigation.
Forty years after journalist Luis Eduardo Merlino was arrested, tortured, and killed during Brazil’s military dictatorship (1964-1985), retired Army Colonel Carlos Alberto Brilhante Ustra is being tried for his alleged role in the crime, Correio do Brasil reports.
Journalist Yolanda Orda, who had been missing for 48 hours, was found dead in Veracruz, Mexico, July 26, the Associated Press reports. Ordaz, who covered police issues for Notiver – one of the most important dailies in the region – is the second journalist from the paper to be killed in the last five weeks and the seventh Mexican journalist killed in 2011.
While violence against the press in Paraguay is nowhere near the levels found in Mexico, Honduras, or Colombia, journalists in the country have little support and face daily risks, especially those in border regions controlled by international smuggling gangs, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) writes in its report “Journalists alone facing trafficking."
A bill in Brazil’s Chamber of Deputies would require media companies to provide life and disability insurance for journalists working in dangerous areas, Agência Câmara reports.
Journalist Jaime Quispe, the director of Jornada newspaper in Ayacucho, Peru, received a death threat the same day he published an article about political pressure to release a regional politician’s imprisoned brother, whom he accused of being a member of a blackmail gang, the Press and Society Institute (IPYS) reports.
Political journalist Auro Ida, 53, was shot to death the morning of July 22 in front of his girlfriend’s house in Cuiabá, Mato Grosso, G1 reports.
In front of a police station in São José do Rio Preto, São Paulo, two Brazilian journalists were attacked while attempting to interview a doctor under investigation for the death of a university student, Diário Web reports.