More than 20 journalists have been attacked or threatened while reporting on the national strike that has brought Colombia’s agriculture industry to a standstill since August 18, according to Reporters Without Borders (RSF).
Four journalists were assaulted and hospitalized on Friday, Aug. 22, while covering the first session of the Parliamentary Inquiry Commission (CPI in Portuguese) on bus transportation of the Rio de Janeiro City Council, reported the News site G1.
A new period of violence against freedom of the press has begun in Guatemala, said the UN's special rapporteur for freedom of expression Frank La Rue in an opinion piece denouncing the recent wave of aggressions against journalists in the country.
Guatemalan reporter Carlos Alberto Orellana Chávez was killed on Monday, Aug. 19, in the town of San Bernardino, located in the province of Suchitepéquez, reported Cerigua. Orellana Chávez is the fourth reporter killed in Guatemala this year.
C-Libre, a Honduras-based organization promoting freedom of expression, is questioning the suicide of journalist Aldo Calderón, who was investigating the killing of his colleague Anibal Barrow.
The assassination of Mexican reporter Armando “El Choco” Rodríguez, committed in 2008, will be the first homicide case taken up by the federal government's Special Prosecutor's Office on Crimes Committed against Freedom of Expression, reported El Diario de Juárez.
The Civic Association for Communication and Information for Women (CIMAC in Spanish) released a report yesterday on violence against female journalists in Mexico. The document details the types of offenders, forms of violence, age and marital status of almost 100 journalists who have been attacked or intimidated in the last decade.
The director of a Guatemalan newspaper accused the government of trying to enter his house on two separate occasions last week, reported Spanish news agency EFE. However, federal officials denied that the agents had the intention of entering his home or intimidating him.
The house of journalist and blogger Angelo Rigon was the target of five gunshots in the morning hours of Sunday, Aug. 11, in the town of Maringá (Paraná), reported the newspaper O Diário. The journalist was at home during the attack, but he was not injured. Rigon runs a blog that publishes news and analyses about regional politics.
A court in the Mexican state of Veracruz revoked on Aug. 8 the sentence against a man who claimed to have been tortured in order to confess to murdering Mexican journalist Regina Martínez, reported news magazine Proceso.
Guatemalan journalist and radio host Luis Lima was killed in the early morning of Tuesday, Aug. 6 in front of his radio station in the province of Zacapa, on the southeast side of the country, newspaper El País reported.
Two reporters from Nicaragua have asked for asylum to the United States after receiving death threats, according to the daily La Prensa.