Of the 124,394 applications received during the first 18 months since Brazil’s new Law of Access to Information (LAI) went into effect, 5.15 percent came from journalists, according to Brazil’s Inspector General Jorge Hage.
The Cuban government appointed new editors for its two main newspapers, Granma and Juventud Rebelde, describing the move as part of a “renewal” process to improve the country’s official press, BBC News reported.
The creation of a new intelligence body in Venezuela that, among other powers, has the capacity to declare information as "reserved" or "classified," generated concern among different national and international organizations, several publications reported.
Update 10/18/2013: According to Reporters without Borders, all three journalists, along with Denis Noa Martinez and Pablo Morales Marchán (correspondents for Hablemos Press) who had been arrested Sunday, were released on Oct. 14.
Luis Chancay, president of the National Educators’ Union of Guayas, Ecuador, filed a complaint before the People’s Defender on Sept. 23 because of a memorandum from the Ministry of Education. This memorandum prohibits rectors, directors and professors of educational institutions in the Province of Guayas from giving statements to the press without the authorization of the sub secretary of said ministry, according to the Ecuadorian newspaper El Universal.
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro called on the country's courts and authorities to consider “special measures” that would grant him the ability to sanction print, television and radio news media after accusing them of waging "a psychological war” over Venezuela's current food shortage.
The killing of a newspaper vendor in Colombia has alarmed organizations such as the Foundation for Freedom of the Press, FLIP, which suspect the crime intended to silence media outlets and their sources.
Numerous protests led by journalists across Bolivia rallied earlier this month in the country's most important cities and squares to protest against a new federal transparency bill that would limit -- instead of expanding -- access to public information, news agency AFP reported.
A Brazilian court has prohibited Diario de Pernambuco and Jornal do Commercio, two of the largest newspapers in the state of Pernambuco, from mentioning the name or show pictures of the president of the state’s Legislative Assembly, Guilherme Uchoa, news portal Terra reported. The decision also applies to Brazilian station TV Clube.
A court in Paraná state, located in the south of Brazil, prohibited the newspaper Gazeta do Povo from publishing information about the ongoing investigations against the head judge of the State Supreme Court, appellate judge Clayton Camargo, in yet another case of judicial censorship in Brazil, reported the newspaper Zero Hora.
The recent surge of legal actions against private media outlets in Venezuela has caught the attention of several journalism organizations, who have described them as attacks on freedom of expression.
A media phenomenon has emerged in Brazil in the wake of the massive protests that are spreading throughout the country since June. The news collective Mídia NINJA, broadcasting live from the streets with its "no cuts, no censorship" model, has attracted the attention and admiration of thousands of people in the last few weeks.