Brazilian Rep. Márcio Reinaldo Moreira slapped a reporter from the TV program Custe o que Custar (CQC) in the face, the night of Tuesday, May 8, in Brasilia, reported the portal UOL. Reporter Felipe Andreoli, victim of the attack, was interviewing the representative about the proposed constitutional amendment on slave work in Brazil and asked the politician if he didn't think it was unfair for the people to have to wait so long for such proposal to be voted on, according to the news site R7.
A Paraguayan journalist received a threatening letter at his home on Tuesday, May 8, from the Paraguayan People's Army (EPP in Spanish), reported the radio station 970 AM. The letter said "No to bourgeois journalism, protected by corrupt, nepotistic public officials. The armed struggle continues,” reported the newspaper Última Hora.
The Center for Informative Reports of Guatemala (Cerigua in Spanish) criticized the closure of two community radio stations and six local television channels so far in May. According to Cerigua, dozens of community broadcasters operate illegally because of a lack of legislation that would grant them operating licenses. As a result, the stations often suffer persecution at the hands of local authorities.
A journalist from the most influential Honduran radio station was kidnapped in the capital of Tegucigalpa, early in the morning of Wednesday, May 9, reported the newspaper La Prensa.
On Monday, April 30, during unrest at the La Planta prison, in Caracas, Venezuela, the country's minister of prison services, Iris Varela, told the state-run TV channel Venezuelana Televisión (VTV) that the private TV broadcaster Globovisión was spreading "malicious information" and an order was issued to seize the station's equipment and interrupt the channel's transmission, reported the National Association of Journalists (CNP in Spanish).
On Thursday, April 12, Mexican federal Congress members approved a series of changes to the current Federal Law of Radio and Television that would allow for indigenous communities to request permits to operate radio stations.
For the second time this month, a Colombian journalist was shot to death; this time in Sabanalarga, in the state of Atlántico, Colombia, reported The Associated Press. Journalist Jesús Martínez, a community radio reporter in Sabanalarga, was killed Thursday, March 29.
Two armed men trying to break into a Honduran TV channel's offices, destroyed one of the station's mobile units early in the morning of Wednesday, March 28, reported the organization C-Libre.
Through social networks, Brazilian military police discovered a plot to kidnap journalist José Luiz Datena, host of the television program "Urgent Brazil," on the night of Wednesday, March 28, according to a column written by journalist Flávio Ricco of UOL.
A grenade exploded in front of the headquarters of a Mexican television station the night of Sunday, March 25, in the border city of Matamoros, causing material damages but no injuries, reported the newspaper El Universal.
Authorities accused a Chilean radio journalist of inciting a "climate of violence" in the area of Aysén, Chile, where protests are frequent, according to a report from the World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters (AMARC).
On the afternoon of Monday, March 12, a cameraman working for TV Record was attacked while covering a traffic accident in Campo Grande, capital of the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso do Sul, reported the news site MS Record.