Human rights experts from the United Nations urged the government to take urgent measures to protect journalists in Honduras, where seven media workers have been assassinated since March 1, the AFP and EFE news agencies report.
The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) has presented formal charges to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, regarding two Brazilian journalists whose alleged killers remain unpunished, IAPA reports.
Police authorities say they'll investigate charges that members of an anti-riot squad in Cali (western Colombia), beat reporters and photographers who were covering a Labor Day protest, RCN radio reports.
Public Security Minister Óscar Alvarez rejected the claims made by Amnesty International and other non-governmental organizations that point to the existence of an organized group that seeks to silence the Honduran press, Spain's El Mundo reports, with information from news agencies.
Óscar Rubio Cárdenas, 75, was killed in his apartment in Bogotá, apparently by two people who attempted to rob him, EFE reports.
Journalist Érika Ramírez and photographer David Cilia, both of Contralínea magazine, were rescued late Thursday, the Committee to Protect Journalists reports. Cilia suffered two gunshot wounds to the leg.
Relatives of Evaristo Ortega Zárate found the van he was driving a week ago when he is believed to have been kidnapped in Xalapa, Veracruz, the Veracruzanos.info site reports, with information from news agencies.
The Paraguayan Journalists Forum (FOPEP) is writing a professional code of ethics for journalists, the newspaper ABC Color reports.
Prosecutors have charged two people in the kidnapping of Luis Gerardo Núñez, a reporter for the Globovisión TV network who was rescued in Caracas Friday night by police after a ransom was paid, Globovisión and El Carabobeño report. He was abducted for at least 48 hours.
The Inter American Press Association has invited readers of almost 400 papers throughout the Americas to sign a letter to President Porfirio Lobo Sosa asking him to take actions to confront and stop violence against Honduran journalists. Six journalists and one broadcaster have been killed in the country since March 1.
Secretary of Security Óscar Álvarez said authorities were close to solving two of the seven killings of media workers in less than two months (six journalists and one broadcaster), including last week’s shooting of TV journalist Jorge “Georgino” Orellana, La Prensa reports.
President Porfirio Lobo is arranging for Spain and Colombia to help solve the crimes committed in the last two months against six journalists and one radio announcer in Honduras, El Heraldo reports.