The investigation into the 1986 death of the publisher and editor-in-chief of the newspaper El Espectador, Guillermo Cano, will have no statute of limitations as the prosecution declared the killing, still unsolved, as a crime against humanity, reported El Espectador and El Colombiano.
Hugo Olivera Cartas was killed Tuesday morning after being shot three times. The body was found in a pickup truck on a road between the cities of Tepalcatepec and Aguililla in the western state of Michoacán, reports the news agency Quadratín, where the journalist worked. (See this Associated Press article in English.)
The attorney general’s office decided to restructure the Special Prosecutor for Crimes against Journalists, which will now focus specifically on crimes against media workers who are attacked for their profession, El Universal and EFE report.
The official voice of Cuba's Communist party, the newspaper Granma, reported that Guillermo Fariñas is at risk of dying after nearly 130 days of a hunger strike. In an extensive interview, the chief of the intensive care unit of the hospital where Fariñas is staying said doctors have done just about all they can to save his life.
A cameraman for Jamaican television station CVM was assaulted by police and then temporarily detained for attempting to film an alleged police shooting of a shopkeeper in St. Ann, reported RJR News.
In a letter to the executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), Mexican President Felipe Calderón acknowledges a letter CPJ sent him a month ago about the increase in the number of cases of attacks and harassment by security forces against the press. The president said that the complaint was sent to the Attorney General's office, which will offer a response.
The Association of Argentine Journalistic Entities (ADEPA) published a statement denouncing a recent series of threats and intimidation against journalists. Violent reactions to investigative journalism has become a tradition, the group said.
Dissident Cuban journalist Guillermo Coco Fariñas, on a hunger strike for four months, is in critical condition and risks death, reported the website Cubanet.
Not only paramilitaries, but also government agents were involved in the 1999 killing of prominent journalist and humorist Jaime Garzón. El Heraldo reported that Colombian prosecutors ordered José Miguel Narváez, the ex-deputy director of the Administrative Department of Security (DAS, or Colombia's intelligence agency), be held for ordering Garzón's death.
The National Union of Press Workers (SNTP) and the Dominican Guild of Journalists (CDP) denounced the death threats and aggression against several journalists in the towns of Nagua, Montecristi and San Juan, reported Diario Digital.
The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) asked the Brazilian government and legislators to approve a proposed Constitutional amendment that would allow killings and attempted killings of journalists to be judged at the federal level. IAPA issued a declaration and sent to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Congress members a letter signed by newspaper readers from across the continent.
Journalist Márcia Pache, from TV Centro-Oeste, affiliate of SBT in Pontes e Lacerda, west of Cuiabá, was hit in the face on Monday, June 28, by Councilman Lorivaldo Rodrigues de Moraes (DEM), known as "Kirrarinha," according to the website Midia News.