Mexico has witnessed an increase in violence against media in just 10 days. Three journalists were killed in different states, one more is missing and in videos spread on the internet, it’s possible to hear shots ring out during coverage of a protest against femicides.
Cuban journalist Camila Acosta has had to move 10 times, between March and October, replace her cell phone three times and has been detained up to four times.
Special reports reveal Mexico as not only the deadliest country in Latin America for journalists, but a global leader in that undesirable category. Along with Brazil, it is also one of the worst countries in the world for convictions of murderers of journalists.
Organizations have launched courses, training or guides on the subject and, more recently, started to provide personalized and free assistance to women journalists who suffer online harassment.
Peruvian journalist Paola Ugaz faces a new lawsuit for aggravated defamation, this time from the director of the Peruvian news site La Abeja. It’s the most recent incident of legal trouble for the journalist related to her investigative reporting about the Sodalitium Christianae Vitae, a lay community linked to the Catholic Church in Peru.
“The President wants to destroy our credibility and is using all the tools the State gives him,” said José Luis Sanz, director of El Faro.
Health neglect and job insecurity are among the main conditions that contributed to a greater exposure to the viral infection of the deceased Latin American journalists, said Distintas Latitudes.
UNESCO points out the increase in recent years in cases of harassment, detention and physical violence against journalists covering demonstrations. From Jan. 1, 2015 to Jan. 30, 2020, at least 125 journalists were attacked while covering protests in 65 countries.
After almost three years after the trial started for Miroslava Breach’s murder, Juan Carlos Moreno Ochoa was declared guilty on March 18 and sentence on August 2020.
The Brazilian president's threat of physical violence against a journalist who asked him a question puts the conflictual relationship that he has had with the press since before becoming president on a different level, according to press freedom organizations.
The journalist and humorist Jaime Garzón Forero was murdered in the early hours of Aug. 13, 1999, in an alliance between agents of the State and groups outside the law. The country continues to demand for justice.
The LatAm Journalism Review spoke with experts to find out what the deaths reveal about the effectiveness and performance of the Mechanism for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders and Journalists, which was created in 2012.