Transparency and public information access advocates accused the Supreme Federal Court (STF) of censoring information about investigations against politicians and public officials, O Globo reports.
The Paraguayan newspaper ABC Color reports that two of its journalists were interrogated and had their documents photocopied by police in Tarija, the largest city in the Bolivian state of the same name that borders Paraguay and Argentina. The reporters were in Bolivia to investigate the case against the governor of Tarija, Mario Cossío, who fled to Paraguay after being removed from office on corruption charges, EFE explains.
The Constitutional Court of Peru ruled that media outlets cannot make public secretly recorded phone calls when their content “affects personal or family privacy, or the private life of the intercepted party or third parties, unless it is of public interest or import,” Perú 21 reports.
In a ruling referring to the so-called “petro-audio”, the Constitutional Court of Peru said newspapers, radios and television stations cannot make public recordings of phone calls that were illegally obtained, reported El Comercio.
Alleged statements by a drug trafficking suspect who was captured in September and is now under witness protection in Mexico has led to a heated back and forth between Proceso magazine and Televisa.
The Appellate Court of Carabobo state annulled journalist Francisco “Pancho” Pérez's conviction that had sentenced him to three years and nine months of house arrest and a ban on practicing journalism during his sentence, El Carabobeño reports.
Luis Ángel Sas, an investigative journalist for elPeriódico, reported receiving death threats that made reference to his recent reports on Guatemalan military weapons that ended up in the hands of the Mexico-based criminal group Los Zetas, Cerigua reports. Sas – whose beat is drug trafficking, corruption, and crime – told Noticieros Televisa that he first received threats at the offices of elPeriódico while he was at an investigating organized crime conference in Panama. A recent report by a Guatemalan freedom of expression group called drug trafficking groups like Los Zetas one of the biggest threats to journalism
The government’s National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) is investigating reports of death threats against Milenio Semanal magazine reporter Jorge Alejandro Medellín, Noroeste reports.
On Oct. 18, journalist Francisco Gomes de Medeiros was killed in front of his home in the city of Caicó in Rio Grande do Norte state, O Globo’s Repórter de Crime blog reports. F. Gomes, as he was known, worked in radio in the city, was an active blogger, and collaborated with various media outlets in the state. He is the second Brazilian journalist killed in three days.
Approximately 500 members of unions, social movements, and journalism groups gathered at the São Paulo Journalists’ Union offices to demonstrate “In defense of democracy and against media coup-ism,” G1 reports.
In the wake of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s statements accusing the press of acting like a political party, unions, several worker groups, government partisans, social movement activists, and progressive bloggers are planning an “action against media coup-ism” this Thursday, Sept. 23, at the headquarters of the São Paulo Journalists’’ Union, O Globo reports.
Two individuals set on fire the motorcycle of journalist Alberto Caballero Parejo, owner of the community radio station Innovación Estéreo (Innovation Stereo) in Ciéanaga, reported El Informador. Neighbors warned the journalist and helped him to put out the fire.