The Brazilian military hindered camera crews from filming in the Complexo do Alemão, a collection of 13 slums, or favelas, outside Rio de Janeiro, on Oct. 3, reported the website Consciência.net. The favelas have been occupied by the military since November 2010, after a series of attacks orchestrated by drug traffickers.
A Brazilian news team investigating an attack by a soccer fan club on a player found themselves the target of violence by the same club on Oct. 12, reported the sports newspaper UOL Esporte.
With more than 500 killings during the last 10 years, journalism is one of the most dangerous professions in the world, according to an alert from the United Nations.
The United Nations Special Rapporteur on freedom of expression said he would ask the Honduran government permission to investigate the killings of 16 journalists in the Central American country since the June 2009 coup d'état, reported the news agency EFE.
Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa threatened to bring yet another charge against the embattled newspaper El Universo after it published a provocative letter by an assembly member, according to the group Fundamedios.
The non-governmental organization Foro Penal Venezolano wrote a letter to the High Commissioner for Human Rights requesting the United Nations organization send an observer to Venezuela to monitor the case of jailed editor Leocenis García.
International organizations and the French government condemned the killing of Mexican journalist María Elizabeth Macías.
President of the Block of Venezuelan Press, an association of Venezuelan newspaper editors, believes covering the 2012 presidential election will be especially difficult for an independent press already under attack.
With two votes in favor and one abstention, a court in Ecuador upheld a sentence of three years in prison and $40 million in damages against an ex-columnist and three directors of the newspaper El Universo.
Reporters Without Borders listed Mexico and four other countries in an interactive Internet documentary titled "In the Heart of Censorship" to raise awareness about violations of freedom of expression.