Judicial censorship of newspapers and blogs is on the rise leading up to municipal elections in Brazil. On Monday, Sept. 3, journalist Fernando Conceição claimed that a mayoral candidate tried to censor him in the city of Salvador.
On Tuesday, Aug. 28, a news team from the newspaper El Nacional was detained by Venezuelan National Guard officials while trying to report on a large fire in the oil refinery of Amuay, in the state of Falcón, reported El Nacional.
An ultraconservative group in Mexico blocked the press from entering Nueva Jerusalén, a town in the state of Michoacán where a serious conflict is ongoing between secular inhabitants that confront religious fanatics for public education rights, according to the news agency Quadratin.
The freedom of expression organization Article 19 announced the release of the report "Digital Freedom in Brazil," which aims to serve as a resource to bring Brazil in agreement with international freedom of expression standards and improve online expression in the South American country.
A special report about Venezuela on Wednesday, Aug. 29, by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) called attention to President Hugo Chávez's harassment of the private press during the last 13 years, reported the newspaper La Nación. The report, titled "Venezuela's private media wither under Chávez assault," is the fourth CPJ has published about Venezuela ever since Chávez was elected president for the first time, in 1999. According to CPJ, Chávez has used threats and restrictive measures -- such as the persecution of journalists that criticize the government, and other ways of criminalizing the press -- to und
Venezuelan journalists from private news outlets were not allowed to cover a presidential event on Monday, Aug. 6, reported El Universal.
A group of exiled Cuban activists in the United States is planning a fireworks display off Cuba's coast to demand Internet access and freedom of expression on the island on Saturday, Aug. 11, according to the EFE news agency.
Officials of the Venezuelan National Guard seized the camera and deleted the work of a photographer who was covering violence in a park in the city of Barinas, in southeastern Venezuela, reported the National Union of Journalists on Friday, August 3.
In an attempt to block the circulation of the Panamanian newspaper La Prensa, construction workers besieged the publication's offices late in the evening Thursday, Aug. 2, until the early morning of Friday, Aug. 3, according to the newspaper.
In an editorial published Thursday, Aug. 2, the newspaper El Observador criticized the Uruguayan government of issuing a decree that censors violent images prior to their publication in the news.