Journalist Leobardo Vázquez Atzin, 42, was killed in the settlement of El Renacimiento in the city of Gutiérrez Zamora, Veracruz on March 21.
The Brazilian Civil Police have accused Renato Oliveira, deputy secretary of Embu das Artes prefecture, in the São Paulo metropolitan region, of being the author of an attack against journalist Gabriel Barbosa da Silva, which occurred on Dec. 28, 2017.
Before strong criticism of its inefficiency, and the escalating number of attacks and murders of journalists and human rights defenders that Mexico has experienced in the last almost two decades, the Advisory Council for the Mechanism for the Integral Protection of Human Rights Defenders and Journalists in Mexico City was finally implemented. The council will seek to make this system in the country’s capital more efficient.
Severe restrictions on freedom of expression that include censorship and closure of media outlets, assaults and attacks against journalists and criminalization of opinion contrary to the government of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, were documented by an annual report of the Office of the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of expression of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR). The report specifically analyzed the situation of human rights in Venezuela during 2017.
The Brazilian Civil Police arrested four people on Feb. 9 in the town of Edealina, in the state of Goiás, who are suspected in the murder of radio broadcaster Jefferson Pureza. Those arrested include councilmember José Eduardo Alves da Silva, of the Party of the Republic (PR) who is accused by police of ordering the crime that occurred on Jan. 17, 2018.
Mexican blogger Pamela Montenegro was shot to death on Feb. 5 in a restaurant in Acapulco.
The bodies of a journalist and a publicist were found on Feb. 1 in a cane plantation in Santo Domingo Suchitepéquez, southwest of the Guatemalan capital, according to the public prosecutor.
A Colombian judge sentenced Yean Arlex Buenaventura to 58 years and 3 months in jail for the 2015 murder of journalist Luis Peralta Cuellar and his wife, Sofía Quintero. According to the Foundation for Press Freedom (FLIP), which represented the victims in court, this is the highest sentence ever handed down in the country for a crime against freedom of expression.
The Brazilian Association of Investigative Journalism (Abraji) announced on Jan. 24 that members of the organization will investigate the murder of radio journalist Jefferson Pureza Lopes, who was shot dead on Jan. 17 in the city of Edealina, in the state of Goiás.
Authorities are looking for Mexican reporter Agustín Silva Vázquez who was last seen on Jan. 21 in the state of Oaxaca.
Seven months after the last recorded murder in Brazil in which a journalist was killed in retaliation for their work, the country saw two murders of journalists in just two days.
After being investigated by authorities for several months, and recently stripped of his parliamentary immunity, a Guatemalan congressman aligned with the ruling party was arrested for allegedly being the intellectual author of the 2015 murders of Danilo Zapón López, journalist of Prensa Libre, and Federico Salazar, journalist at Radio Nuevo Mundo.