The Brazilian news website Congresso em Foco was acquitted of defamation in the first of one of many lawsuits brought against the site, which published a series of reports on the existence of salaries higher than the constitutional ceiling for politicians, authorities and civil servants in the executive, legislative and judiciary branches, reported the Forum for the Right to Access Public Information.
In an article titled "Will the land grabbers win?" and published Saturday, Feb. 11, the editor of the Brazilian newspaper Jornal Pessoal, Lúcio Flávio Pinto, reported that the Supreme Court denied his appeal to a lawsuit filed by one of country´s largest construction companies and ordered the journalist to pay roughly $4,600 in moral damages, according to the website Socioambiental.
"This demonstrates that you can prosecute not only the clowns, but also the owner of the circus," said Ecuadoran president Rafael Correa as he celebrated the high court's ruling upholding the defamation sentence against the owners of the newspaper El Universo, the same newspaper reported Thursday, Feb. 16.
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) called a Dominican Republic journalist's six-month prison sentence for slander and libel dangerous and disproportionate.
Amilton Alexander, a Brazilian blogger known as Mosquito was found dead in his house Tuesday, Dec. 13, in the city of Florianópolis, in the state of Santa Catarina, according to Cangablog.
Warning of a "progressive loss of fundamental rights" in Ecuador, the Coordinating Committee of Press Freedom Organizations, during its half-yearly meeting Dec. 9 in Miami, issued a series of resolutions calling on the administration of President Rafael Correa to respect free speech and press freedom.
On Dec. 9, Costa Rican courts opened an avenue to appeal criminal libel sentences thanks to an Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) case involving a defamation charge against a journalist, reported AFP.
On Wednesday, Dec. 7, a Peruvian journalist was sentenced to two years in prison for defamation, reported the newspaper La Primera.
The Mexican Senate approved the decriminalization of slander and libel, reported the newspaper El Universal on Nov. 29.
Human Rights Watch asked the Ecuadorian government to repeal all insult and defamation laws against public officials, the New York-based human rights organization announced.