Two weeks before the second round of Colombia’s presidential election, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) has released videos that show four police and a soldier held since the late 1990s are still alive, BBC and CNN report. The five hostages urge officials to hold talks with the rebels, BBC adds.
Journalists who cover environmental degradation are increasingly subject to threats and attacks, according to a new Reporters without Borders investigative report, “High-Risk Subjects: Deforestation and Pollution” (PDF file). Its publication is timed to coincide with World Environment Day (June 5).
It appears that the killing of reporter David Meza Montesinos will not go unpunished. After weeks of investigations, the attorney general has issued an arrest order against four people accused of killing the TV and radio reporter last March, Radio América and El Heraldo report.
José Jordy Veras Rodríguez, an attorney who appears regularly on the "Mañana Boreal" morning TV program on the privately owned Channel 25, was shot when he arrived at the station’s parking lot this week in Santiago de los Caballeros, the country’s second largest city. He was recovering in a local hospital, with heavily armed guards stationed outside the room, Listín Diario and El Nacional report. (See this report in English by Reporters Without Borders.)
Ângelo Ferreira da Silva is the second convicted assassin of TV journalist Tim Lopes to leave prison while serving a sentence allowing his limited release, the G1 news site reports. Lopes was killed by drug traffickers in 2002 after being captured and tortured while he was reporting on drug and sex trafficking at community dances in a shantytown of Rio de Janeiro.
A computer technician has confessed to sending false emails to 180 court judges in the state of Rio de Janeiro in the name of journalist Chico Otavio of O Globo newspaper. The messages are said to have been sent at the request of a former high-ranking judge, Roberto Wider, who resigned from his job after a series of news reports co-authored by Otavio last year accused Wider of involvement in fraudulent sentencing deals, O Globo explains.
Journalist Gilvan Luiz Pereira, 41, was kidnapped and tortured by three hooded men Thursday night (May 20), in Juazeiro do Norte, Ceará, the newspaper O Povo reports. Pereira is owner and editor of the regional newspaper “Sem Nome” (Without a name), which opposes the current municipal administration.
Public Security Minister Oscar Álvarez submitted a report to congress this week about the deaths of 10 Honduran media workers, seven of whom were killed this year, El Heraldo reports.
Leiderman Ortiz, editor of the newspaper La Verdad de Pueblo, was unharmed but is fearful for his life after the grenade damaged the front of his home in Caucasia, Antioquia, El Tiempo and El Mundo report.
President Barack Obama is hosting his Mexican counterpart Felipe Calderón this week on an official state visit to Washington that includes talks on bilateral issues such as immigration and drug violence on the U.S.–Mexico border. The Committee to Protect Journalists urges the leaders to put Mexico’s press freedom crisis on their agenda.
The offices of Televisa’s Canal 2 in Tepic, Nayarit (on Mexico’s central Pacific coast) were attacked with AK-47s and grenades, La Jornada reports. The facilities suffered damage, but neither of the two people in the offices were wounded, Europa Press adds. (See this Associated Press article in English.)
In the first episode of a special series about violence against Mexican journalists in regions dominated by drug trafficking, CNN Mexico reports that 27 reporters have been threatened in Morelos state alone in central Mexico.