The public prosecutor's office of Chiapas confirmed the detention of a man in connection with the Sept. 21 murder of Mario Gómez, a reporter for El Heraldo de Chiapas in Mexico who was shot in the town of Yajalón while leaving his home to complete some work, according to the paper where he was employed. The official said announcements about others implicated in the case could be forthcoming.
The outgoing government of Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto has assigned 75 million Mexican pesos (US $4 million) to the Protection Mechanism for Human Rights Defenders and Journalists and ensured its operation through the end of the year.
Honduran journalists reported being attacked by demonstrators, police officers and military members during demonstrations in Tegucigalpa on the 197th anniversary of independence.
Communicators threatened for doing their work were officially included in the protection program for human rights defenders of Brazil’s Ministry of Human Rights (MDH, for its initials in Portuguese).
Colombia’s Foundation for Press Freedom (FLIP, for its acronym in Spanish) called on the Attorney General and the Ministry of the Interior to promptly investigate recent death threats made against journalists in early September. These threats were made by an alleged paramilitary group Águilas Negras.
Venezuelan journalists work in an environment often characterized by threats, economic precariousness, limited resources and few job opportunities
The association Periodistas Desplazados Mexico (Displaced Journalists Mexico) is asking the new government of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to politically and legally recognize journalists and media workers who are victims of forced internal displacement caused by violence in the country in the last decade.
A Venezuelan journalist who previously fled his country because of threats is now in a military prison facing multiple charges rejected by press freedom advocates.
Another journalist has been killed in Quintana Roo, the third media professional to be murdered in the Mexican state in the past two months. Motives behind his death are still unclear, but journalists and media organizations are calling on authorities to explore all possible lines of investigation.
A Texas immigration judge denied bail to Cuban journalist Serafín Morán Santiago, who has been in a detention center in that state since April 12 when he arrived in U.S. territory, according to the organization Fundamedios US.