Reporters Without Borders (RSF) calledCuban authorities to release independent journalist Juliet Michelena Diaz, who was arrested on April 7. Diaz was arrested three days before an article she wrote on an episode of police violence she witnessed in La Habana was set to run in Cubanet, a news site based in Miami. The article detailed the use of police dogs in the streets and the arrest and excessive use of force against citizens.
Ángel Santiesteban-Prats, the Cuban author of the critical blog Los hijos que nadie quiso (also available in English as "The Children Nobody Wanted") completed the first year of detention of his five-year sentence on Feb. 28, reported Reporters Without Borders, calling once again for the blogger’s release from prison.
During peace negotiations with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the Colombian government spied on communications between the group’s spokespeople and international journalists who were covering the events, Univisión reported.
Prominent blogger Yoani Sánchez said she plans to launch a digital newspaper in her native Cuba. The announcement took place on Jan. 31 during the Hay Festival, in the Colombian city of Cartagena.
The last six months represented the worst semester for journalists in the Americas in the last five years, according to the Inter American Press Association, news agency EFE reported. The killing of journalists and the various government measures that restrict access to information were some of the reasons that IAPA cited during its General Assembly, which took place in Denver last weekend.
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.
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.
The Institute for War and Peace Reporting has published a new bilingual book compiling several reports from independent Cuban journalists on different social aspects of life in the island. "With Open Voices" gathers articles in Spanish and English on Cuba's isolated society, which continues to suffer from constant attacks against human rights.
The Cuban government rejected "guaranteeing freedom of speech and peaceful assembly, as well as the free activity of human rights defenders, independent journalists and those in opposition to the government," from among 292 formulated recommendations by the UN Human Rights Council, according to a Notimex report published in the Diario of Cuba.
The Cuban government rejected "guaranteeing freedom of speech and peaceful assembly, as well as the free activity of human rights defenders, independent journalists and those in opposition to the government," from among 292 formulated recommendations by the UN Human Rights Council, according to a Notimex report published in the Diario of Cuba.
Bolivia, Cuba, Ecuador, Mexico and Dominican Republic were the countries in the Americas with the most alerts on violations or possible threats against freedom of expression in 2012, according to Amnesty International's 2013 annual report on the state of human rights around the world.
With six countries listed without a free press, including three countries with some of the highest levels of impunity in the world for press crimes, Latin American freedom of expression is at its lowest levels since 1989.