The United States Department of State’s 2010 Human Rights Report says the relationship between the press and the government of Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa “continued to deteriorate” last year, EFE reports.
The state of freedom of expression has deteriorated throughout the Americas, concluded delegates at the Mid-Year meeting of the Inter American Press Association, held April 6-9 in San Diego, Ca.
Venezuela’s National Journalism Guild (CNP) and the National Press Workers’ Syndicate (SNTP) denounced a series of threats to freedom of expression from President Hugo Chávez’s government, highlighting the increasing lack of access to public information and impunity for crimes against journalists, El Universal reports.
Dissident Cuban journalist Albert Santiago Du Bouchet, who had been in jail since 2009 for defamation, was freed by the Cuban authorities and exiled to Spain, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) reports. The government had already released the journalists who were among the 52 dissidents jailed during the 2003 “Black Spring” crackdown.
Two U.S. journalists are among four foreign correspondents captured by the Libyan military earlier this week, reported USA Today. A Spanish photographer and South African photographer also are being held.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), Fundamedios, and Reporters without Borders (RSF) spoke out against the government shutdown of La Voz de la Selva Esmeralda Oriental community radio station in the southeastern Ecuadoran city of Macas, Radio Tierra reports.
On Wednesday Panamanian President Ricardo Martinelli denied a petition from a human rights organization to allow deported Spanish journalists accused of inciting protests to return to Panama, reported La Estrella.
In an article titled “the end of censorship,” Caras magazine announced that it was authorized by a São Paulo state court to publish a letter sent by actress Cibele Dorsa, who died after allegedly committing suicide March 26.
Inter American Press Association (IAPA) president Gonzalo Marroquín and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation were honored with Press Freedom Awards this week at the Institute of the Americas in La Jolla, California, IAPA announced.
Alec Duarte, a political editor for Folha de São Paulo newspaper, and Carol Rocha, a reporter for the Folha-owned Agora SP, were fired on March 31 after Twitter messages about the death of former Vice-President José Alencar, IDG Now reports.
Cuban state-television is accusing a former Reuters bureau chief of serving as a liaison for CIA intelligence, reported the Associated Press.
In an April 1 press conference, a World Cup and Sao Paulo soccer player for the Corinthians team, Adriano Leite Ribeiro, threatened to sue the newspaper O Dia, published in Río de Janeiro. The soccer player is complaining about an article that revealed a tape-recorded conversation in which he makes fun of the police and says he's not scared to drive without a license, reported the news site Terra.