Faring about on par with Asia, better than Africa but worse than Europe, only about 38 percent of countries in Latin America were fully responsive to freedom of information requests filed by the Associated Press (AP) as part of a 105-country-wide project, the AP told the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas. In general, more than half of countries don't abide by their freedom of information laws, MediaBistro noted.
The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) and Reporters Without Borders (RSF in French) asked on Nov. 15 for the immediate release of the editor of the 6to Poder, Leocenis García. García has been jailed since Aug. 30, and has been on a hunger strike since Nov. 9.
"I haven't left work early since Mouriño's plane fell. Be careful fellow flyers," posted a Twitter user in Mexico just days before the helicopter carrying the Mexican interior minister and seven others crashed on Nov. 11 outside Mexico City. "Tomorrow on 11/11 a secretary will fall from the sky," tweeted another user with the handle Morf0.
The director of an organization that defends freedom of expression in Ecuador received death threats on Nov. 11, according to a report from the EFE news agency.
Bodyguards for Deputy Mario Rivera brutally beat two television reporters in Guatemala, according to a report by elPeriódico.
Reporter Guillermo Colina, a cameraman, and a technician for the Venezuelan opposition television station Globovisión were attacked by supporters of President Hugo Chávez while covering a patient protest outside a military hospital in the capital of Caracas, reported the Press and Society Institute on Nov. 7. The same reporter suffered a similar attack on Oct. 17.
For the fourth time in two months in the city of Nuevo Laredo in Mexico, a body has been found with a message threatening users of social networks, reported GlobalPost and La Jornada.
Leocenis García, editor of the Venezuelan newspaper 6to Poder, announced on Nov. 9 that he would go on a hunger strike for an "undetermined time" to reinvigorate the appeal against his detention, reported El Universal. García was arrested Aug. 30 after publishing a cover satirizing several female members of President Hugo Chávez's administration.
The newspaper El Buen Tono, which had only been in circulation for one month, temporarily ceased publishing due to damages sustained to their computer system, editing and administrative departments, as the newspaper Hoy de Veracruz reported.
With Ecuadoran president Rafael Correa increasingly critical of the media, the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA) in October issued a "freedom resolution" calling on the government to "reverse recent trends that seriously undermine a free and independent press in Ecuador, by repealing criminal defamation, putting a stop to all forms of harassment against journalists and guaranteeing the full independence of the media in the country."
A Peruvian journalist from the newspaper La República was shot and robbed Saturday night, Nov. 5, as he was leaving his home, reported the newspaper Correo.
Sylvia Gereda, co-founder and director of the Guatemalan newspaper elPeriódico, said she decided to resign following a dispute with the other co-founders over shares in the newspaper that compromised its editorial independence in Gereda's opinion, according to a post made by the journalist on her blog. In a clarification, Jose Rubén Zamora, editor and founder of elPeriódico wrote, "I did not censor her work not is it true that Manuel Baldizón, presidential candidate, interferes, much less is the owner of elPeriódico, as she says."