On July 14, journalist Fábio Roberto was attacked as he left the offices of Radio Bahiana in Ilhéus, Bahia, where he hosts an opinion show on which he often airs corruption allegations, Vi o Mundo reports.
The director of the Honduran station Radio Joconguera, Nery Orellana, was shot to death Thursday, July 14, on a road in the Honduran town of Candelaria, on the border with El Salvador, reported La Prensa. Orellana, 26 years old, is the fourth journalist killed in Honduras this year, after the killings of journalists Adán Benítez, Francisco Medina Polanco, and Luis Mendoza, owner of television station Canal 24.
Journalist Cristina Guimarães, who, along with Tim Lopes, won the Esso Journalism Prize for the series "Drug Fair," accused Brazil's TV Globo of not adequately protecting Lopes, who was killed in 2002 after receiving threats from drug traffickers in Río de Janeiro, reported the newspaper Jornal do Brasil.
Emilio Gutiérrez, a Mexican journalist seeking asylum in the United States after fleeing the drug-related violence in the northern region of the country, has petitioned the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) of the Organization of American States (OAS) to investigate and rule on the inability of the Mexican government to protect the rights of journalists who have been threatened by the military since President Felipe Calderón began his anti-drug war in 2006, reported El Diario in El Paso, Texas.
The slaying of Argentine folk singer Facundo Cabral after a June 9 concert in Guatemala put the country in the international spotlight. Authorities have reported increasing levels of violence in Guatemala, where the murder rate is more than double that in Mexico, where fights between rival drug trafficking gangs and security forces have left more than 35,000 dead since 2006.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) celebrated the arrest of five suspects accused of killing Brazilian journalist Edinaldo Filgueira, blogger and director of the local chapter of the Workers Party in the state of Rio Grande do Norte.
Brazilian journalist Mário Randolfo Marques Lopes was shot but not killed Wednesday, July 6, at his house in the city of Vassouras, in the state of Rio de Janeiro, according to the newspaper Diário do Vale.
After a six-week investigation, Venezuelan police have concluded that journalist Wilfred Ojeda was killed in revenge over a debt and had nothing to do with his journalistic work, reported ACN.
In a joint operation, federal and civil police from the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Norte arrested on July 2 and 3 five suspects accused of killing community journalist Ednaldo Filgueira, who also blogged and was president of the local chapter of the Workers Party, reported the news site No Minuto.
Mexican journalist Ángel Castillo Corona, columnist for the digital newspaper Portal, was killed along with his teen-age son, early Sunday morning, July 3, when they were assaulted while driving in the city of Tianguistenco in Mexico State, Portal reported.
After the wave of journalist killings in Honduras in 2010 that prompted President Porfirio Lobo to ask the U.S. FBI for help, so far in 2011 three journalists have been killed. Adán Benítez, veteran host and journalist who worked for more than 16 years in radio and television, was shot to death on his way home in the city of La Ceiba on Monday, July 4, reported La Prensa Gráfica.
Guatemalan journalist Jorge Arquímides Manchamé Palma was killed in the city of Esquipulas, in the southeastern Guatemalan department of Chiquimula, on Sunday, July 3, reported the newspaper Prensa Libre.