With a final tally of 46 Mexican journalists and human rights defenders attacked on Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2013 in the march commemorating the 1968 student massacre at Tlatelolco, the organization Article 19 described this attack on freedom of expression as the most violent in Mexico City during a social protest rally.
The body of Honduran cameraman Manuel de Jesús Varela Murillo, 32, was found with three bullet wounds in the face on Oct. 23 near a popular neighborhood in Tegucigalpa, C-Libre reported. It appeared Varela Murillo had been killed a week before being found.
Superficial crime reporting that relies on bloody photos and spread, but lacks any explanation behind such photos, has become a common occurrence among Honduras' media outlets. The Fundación MEPI, a regional investigative journalism project based in Mexico City, says that its content analysis and interviews with reporters and editors have drawn out multiple reasons behind this growing trend: a lack of government-media implemented safety mechanisms to protect journalists, little access to timely official reports by the authorities, and fear of retaliation, if stories display too much context or insight.
Carlos Martínez is a reporter with Salvadoran news site El Faro who specializes in covering violence in Central America. He's part of the publication's Sala Negra team, which was created in 2011 with the goal of creating a model for permanent coverage of prisons, gangs, organized crime and violence in the region.
The director of a Brazilian radio station in in the city of Jaru, Rondônia, was shot and killed on Oct. 12. Another broadcaster was also injured during the attack.
The reported cases of aggression against journalists in Mexico reached a total of 225 between January and September of this year. Of these, two of the journalists died and 33 left the country under threats. In addition to the violence of organized crime, a serious problem of institutional censorship also affects Mexico.
There have been 150 preliminary investigations into attacks against journalists in the first nine months of this year initiated by the Special Prosecutor on Attention to Crimes Committed Against Freedom of Expression (FEADLE) of the Attorney General's Office (PGR) in Mexico, informed deputy director Alberto Peralta Flores, according to the website of the Mexican magazine Proceso.
Journalism organization Reporters Without Borders (RSF in French) called on Colombian authorities to guarantee the safety of four journalists who had received threats from La Guajira governor Juan Francisco Gómez. Last weekend, Gómez was arrested for his alleged participation in three killings and accused of having links with criminal organizations, news agency AFP reported.
The launching of news site Plan V was quick – almost as quick as the first threats the new publication received.
Mexican daily Reforma reported that a distributor of newspaper El Norte, belonging to the same editorial group, was physically attacked and threatened by armed men in the early morning of Oct. 1 in the metropolitan area of Monterrey, located in the northern state of Nuevo León.
The complaints Colombian journalist Manuel José Martínez Espinosa used to air through his community radio program on Popayán, Cauca cost him his life. He was killed on Sept. 28, 1993 in front of his house as his wife opened the gate to their garage.
Journalist and analyst Claudia López fled Colombia due to alleged death threats by a criminal organization, she reported on Twitter.