![Palacio de Miraflores (Guillermo Ramos Flamerich [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)])](https://latamjournalismreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Palacio_de_Miraflores_2015.jpg)
As the sociopolitical crisis in Venezuela deepens and President Nicolás Maduro fights to remain in power, journalists in the country are targeted by assaults, detentions, thefts of their work material and blocking of their internet sites and television channels.
![The Helicoide building in Caracas, where Billy Six is being held (Damián D. Fossi Salas [CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons)](https://latamjournalismreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/The-Helicoide-building-in-Caracas-where-Billy-Six-is-being-held.png)
German journalist Billy Six, imprisoned in Venezuela since mid-November, began a new hunger strike on Feb. 3 and "demands his immediate release," according to the Venezuelan organization Espacio Público.
Arbitrary detentions and the cancellation and withholding of passports belonging to two high-profile Venezuelan journalists helped to mark September as another month in a long period of aggressions against the press in the country.
A Venezuelan journalist who previously fled his country because of threats is now in a military prison facing multiple charges rejected by press freedom advocates.
The Board of Immigration Appeals accepted the emergency suspension of the imminent deportation of Salvadoran journalist Manuel Durán, who since April 5 has been held in Louisiana detention centers belonging to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service.
Mexican authorities arrested Arturo Quintina, known as “El 80,” an alleged drug trafficker suspected of ordering the March 2017 murder of journalist Miroslava Breach, according to El País.
Salvadoran journalist Manuel Durán Ortega (42), who was arrested a month ago by police while covering a protest against immigration policies in the U.S., could be deported from that country at any time, Reporters Without Borders (RSF, for its acronym in French) reported.
Federal Police arrested one of the suspects in the killing of Mexican journalist Javier Valdez Cárdenas on April 23 in Tijuana, Baja California, according to Ríodoce. National Security Commissioner (CNS) Renato Sales Heredia formally announced the arrest at a press conference in Mexico City the following day.
After being investigated by authorities for several months, and recently stripped of his parliamentary immunity, a Guatemalan congressman aligned with the ruling party was arrested for allegedly being the intellectual author of the 2015 murders of Danilo Zapón López, journalist of Prensa Libre, and Federico Salazar, journalist at Radio Nuevo Mundo.
Three Latin American journalists appear on the Committee to Protect Journalist’s (CPJ) annual census of journalists imprisoned around the world. Guatemalan Jerson Antonio Xitumul Morales, Ecuadoran Enrique Rosales Ortega and Venezuelan Braulio Jatar are three of the 262 journalists imprisoned around the world, according to the census, which was published Dec. 13.