As presidential elections in Venezuela approach, President Hugo Chavez on Saturday, March 24, criticized the alleged assaults on journalists of the state-run National System of Public Media committed by supporters of the opposition, according to the website for the Venezuelan National Assembly.
To avoid police aggression, reporters in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, work in groups when covering seizures, arrests and any other crime in this city on the U.S-Mexico border, now considered the second most violent in the world after spending three years in first place. “While one person speaks with officials, others are ready with their cameras to make public any incidents of aggression," explained Alfredo Quijano, editor of the local newspaper Norte, in an interview with the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas.
Venezuelan sports journalist Walter Obregón denounced on Twitter that he was threatened by Zamora Football Club fans on Friday, Feb. 15, in the Venezuelan state of Barinas, reported the NGO Espacio Público.
Around the world, at least 46 journalists were killed for their work in 2011, and another 35 deaths are being investigated to determine whether they were journalism related, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists' (CPJ) annual report documenting attacks on the press, reported the news agency AFP. For the second year in a row, the CPJ report named Pakistan as the deadliest country for journalists, said Radio Free Europe, and CPJ said Mexico is first worldwide for retaliation against reporting done via social media.
Two Argentine journalists were threatened at gunpoint on Monday, Feb. 13, in La Plata, in the province of Buenos Aires, reported the Argentine Journalism Forum (FOPEA in Spanish).
The Mexican newspaper El Buen Tono published images and a video from the armed attack the daily suffered more than three months ago, reported the newspaper Milenio on Wednesday, Feb. 15.
After accusations of skewed coverage of the security forces strike in Río de Janeiro favoring the government, on Sunday, Feb. 12, a news team from TV Globo was harassed and thrown out of a protest of firefighters and military police in the neighborhood of Copacabana, reported the news portal Terra and newspaper Jornal do Brasil.
From a jail in the United States, former Colombian paramilitary commander Diego Fernando Murillo, alias "Don Berna," accused two ex-members of the Colombian national military of being responsible for the killing of journalist and comedian Jaime Garzón on Aug. 13, 1999, reported Caracol Radio.
National and international journalism associations denounced the attack that killed Brazilian journalist Paulo Roberto Cardoso Rodrigues, known as Paulo Rocaro, in the early hours Monday, Feb. 13, in Ponta Porã, Mato Grosso do Sul, on the border with Paraguay. Rocaro was editor in chief of the newspaper Jornal da Praça and of the news site Merco Sul News, where he frequently wrote about politics and drug trafficking.
Two days after the killing of a Brazilian political journalist in the state of Río de Janeiro, Brazilian reporter Jorge Estevão received a death threat from an unknown person who pointed a gun at him early in the morning of Saturday, Feb. 11, in Cuiabá, the capital city of the state of Mato Grosso, reported HiperNotícias.
A Guatemalan reporter received death threats from a National Civil Police agent while trying to cover a vehicle accident, according to the Guatemalan Center for Informative Reports (Cerigua in Spanish).
Brazilian journalist Paulo Roberto Cardoso Rodrigues was shot to death during an attack the night of Sunday, Feb. 12, in Ponta Porã in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul on the border with Paraguay, reported Última Hora. Police suspect it was a hired killing.