The National Federation of Journalists (FENAJ in Portuguese) will launch a commission in January 2013 to investigate the persecution of the press during the military dictatorship in Brazil, reported the newspaper Folha de São Paulo.
The Brazilian government now has a commission to oversee court cases involving freedom of the press, the National Forum of Judicial Authority and Freedom, created on Tuesday, Nov. 13, by the National Judicial Council.
Two reporters in the Dominican Republic could face three months to one year in prison for allegedly defaming the Canadian textile multinational Gildan Activewear, according to Reporters Without Borders (RSF in French).
After the vote was postponed four times because of a lack on consensus, the Internet Bill of Rights, a bill that establishes the rights and obligations of Internet users in Brazil, is back on the floor of the Chamber of Deputies Tuesday, Nov. 13.
The courts have become the greatest hurdle to freedom of expression in Brazil, according to international groups like Inter American Press Association and Freedom House. If judicial offensives are a hurdle for large media organizations, any participation in the political sphere by small websites and blogs can be a death sentence.
Cuban blogger Yoani Sánchez was released on Friday Oct. 5, after being detained for 30 hours, according to the Los Angeles Times and the blogger on her Twitter account.
A mayor in Honduras ordered the closure of a television channel and interfered with the distribution of the newspaper El Heraldo, reported the publication.
Fundamedios, a press organization, accused the Ecuadorian government of waging a smear campaign against it and private media in the Andean country, according to a statement on its website.
The newspaper El Espectador de Colombia claimed the Attorney General of Colombia threatened to censor it, the publication said in an editorial published Wednesday, Oct. 16, reported the Associated Press (AP).
"Maras" and criminal gangs exerted the greatest censorship against the Guatemalan press between July and September 2012, according to a trimester report from the Journalists Observatory of the Center of Informative Reports on Guatemala (CERIGUA in Spanish).
A top government official in Trinidad and Tobago has ordered police to withhold crime statistics from the public and media, the Miami Herald reported Wednesday, Oct. 10.
Organization of American States (OAS) Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression Catalina Botero came out against proposed reforms that would limit the power and function of the Inter-American Human Rights System and would affect the defense of freedom of expression in the region, according to the Guatemalan organization Cerigua.