Early in the morning on Nov. 10, an unidentified man shot community radio journalist Israel Gonçalves Silva inside a store in Lagoa de Itaenga in Pernambuco state. The journalist had just dropped his children at school. Reports say the man fled via motorcycle without taking anything.
Flor Alba Núñez Vargas was only 25-years-old when she was fatally shot on the way to work on Sept. 10, 2015. Despite her youth, she simultaneously worked as a journalist at radio stations, television outlets and newspapers in Pitalito in the Huila department of southwest Colombia.
This has been the deadliest year for the Mexican press since President Enrique Peña Nieto took the presidency in 2012, according to freedom of expression advocacy organization Article 19.
A former deputy police chief accused of ordering the kidnapping and killing of Mexican journalist Moisés Sánchez Cerezo was released from prison after a federal judge granted him amparo, an action to protect an individual’s constitutional rights.
The case of Colombian journalist Nelson Carvajal, murdered on April 16, 1998, was submitted to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights on October 22 by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR).
The International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists (IDEI), on Nov. 2, was marked by events all over the world. At the United Nations headquarters in New York City, a panel discussion concluded that it is time for the international community to take more concrete actions to protect journalists and prosecute those who commit crimes against them.
Colombian authorities reported the arrest of former legislator and politician Ferney Tapasco for whom it had issued an arrest warrant after he was sentenced for being the mastermind of the murder of journalist Orlando Sierra. The capture by the prosecution and the police took place in the early hours of Nov. 1, according to newspaper La Patria.
Students at the University of Texas at Austin erected the Altar de Muertos (Altar of the Dead) for Proceso journalist Regina Martínez, photojournalist Rubén Espinosa, Veracruz activist Nadia Vera, El Diario reporter Armando Rodríguez Carreón and citizen journalist María del Rosario Fuentes Rubio.
Today, UNESCO hosts the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists (IDEI), aiming to prompt governments around the world to take stronger actions towards condemning and prosecuting those who commit crimes against journalists. Press advocates explain that the death of journalists is not only an industry-related problem but a threat to democratic society as a whole.
In the context of high levels of violence against journalists in Brazil, which already account for four murders this year, freedom of the press defenders came together around a project that seeks to curb impunity in these crimes. The Brazilian Press Association (ABI for its acronym in Portuguese) and the National Federation of Journalists (Fenaj for its acronym in Portuguese) launched "SOS Journalist", a platform for journalists to denounce aggressions and media abuses related to their professional practice, and to ask for and receive state protection.
A white plaque near Villa Ygatimí, about 26 miles from the Paraguayan border with Brazil, commemorates a journalist and an assistant killed while driving on a dirt highway there a year earlier.
Photographers from around the world donated their work to support the family of photojournalist and colleague Rubén Espinosa who was killed almost three months ago in Mexico City.