The newspaper Novo Jornal reports that its journalists were not allowed to leave the offices of businessman Augusto Caldar Targino, ex director of the Rio Grande do Norte’s consumer protection agency, while he threatened and berated them. (Listen to a recording of the incident in Portuguese here.)
The Nicaraguan newspaper El Nuevo Diario reported that its journalists were threatened after publishing articles about supposed corruption in the government of President Daniel Ortega, according to the local press. The cases of corruption and nepotism are related to the Finance Ministry and the equivalent of the IRS, the newspaper said.
Former TV executive José Enrique Crousillat, who was convicted of selling his station’s editorial line during the regime of President Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000), was returned to prison after being released for health reasons and later turning fugitive.
The mayor of Santa Branca, São Paulo, Odair Leal da Rocha Júnior (PMDB), threatened a crew for the Record TV network that was trying to interview him about alleged corruption in his administration, the station reports. Later that day, the mayor was arrested under suspicion of dealing drugs.
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.