Journalist Álvaro Aceituno López, 65, was killed near his home in Coatepeque, Quetzaltenango in southwest Guatemala on June 25. He is the fifth journalist killed in Guatemala in the first six months of 2016, according to the Center for Informative Reports about Guatemala (Cerigua).
In the face of threats from government officials and shortly after Juan Ramón Quintana, the Minister of the Presidency of Bolivia, labeled her as part of a “cartel of lies,” journalist Amalia Pando requested protection for her journalistic work before the Inter American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) through a precautionary measure, according to news agency EFE.
Less than 24 hours after the death of a journalist in Oaxaca, a reporter in Tamaulipas state has been killed by a group of armed men. She is the eighth journalist killed in Mexico this year.
Jacinto (Jay) Torres Hernández, a journalist, photographer and real estate agent living in Texas, was found with a gunshot wound to the chest late June 13 in the backyard of a house in the city of Garland, according to newspaper La Estrella.
Mexican reporter Elidio Ramos Zárate, who had been covering a teachers’ union protest in Oaxaca, was killed on June 19 while taking a photo of a robbery in-progress at a convenience store, according to newspaper El Universal.
In the span of a week, two respected journalists in Central America have died under mysterious circumstances. Journalists associations in Guatemala and El Salvador are calling on authorities to solve the deaths of television director Víctor Hugo Valdez and television producer Pedro Antonio Portillo, respectively.
More than half of the deaths registered this year occurred in only two countries: Mexico (9) and Guatemala (5). Homicides and deaths were also reported in Honduras (3), El Salvador (3), Brazil (2) and Venezuela (2). Perpetrators were identified in only five cases.
Two Latin American journalists will be recognized this year at the rededication of the Journalists Memorial of the Newseum, a U.S.-based museum and institute dedicated to freedom of expression.
The security situation for the Colombian press seems to be getting worse in the midst of peace negotiations between the government and rebel groups in the country.
The Spanish journalist Salud Hernández-Mora disappeared on Saturday May 21 at noon in the municipality of El Tarra, while investigating the eradication of illegal crops in the region of Catatumbo in the Colombian department of Norte de Santander, according to Reuters.
Jineth Bedoya Lima, the Colombian journalist who was kidnapped, tortured and subjected to sexual violence on May 25, 2000 by a paramilitary group in retaliation for her work as a journalist, formally returned the administrative reparations that the Colombian State awarded her as a victim of the armed conflict, according to newspaper El Espectador.
Journalist Manuel Torres González, 45, was shot in the head from behind on May 14 after leaving state offices in the city of Poza Rica in northern Veracruz, as reported by Milenio, citing the Attorney General of Veracruz.