Journalists and media outlets in the western Peruvian city of Chimbote have joined to protest the president of the Ancash region, who they say is persecuting and harassing reporters who have criticized his government, CPN Radio reports.
In a climate of increasing hostility to freedom of expression in Colombia, five journalists received death threats from a paramilitary group, which warned that the time had arrived to “exterminate and annihilate all those people and organizations that pose as human rights defenders,” La Vanguardia and El País Vallenato report.
A new poll of Argentine journalists by Ibarómetro shows that 80 percent of those surveyed believe “there is freedom of expression” in the country, the state-run news agency Télam reports. 73 percent say they support a controversial media law that has stoked ongoing tensions and legal conflicts between the government and the country’s largest media companies.
In a small-scale mirror of a controversial firing, then rehiring in Mexico, the Brazilian newspaper A Tarde says it will rehire Aguirre Peixoto and annul the suspension it leveled against him, Portal Imprensa reports.
The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) called on Supreme Court to rule on the ownership and frequency concession of a local TV station, Canal 8, that was taken over by the government, El Heraldo reports.
Magangué Hoy reports that a homemade bomb was thrown at one of its journalist’s house in the northern Colombian city of Magangué. No one was injured in the attack.
After controversy sparked by a language in a bill that created crimes of “media violence," referring to content that disparages or satirizes women, the Supreme Court decided to withdraw the bill, barely more than a week after it was originally submitted to the National Assembly, EFE and La Prensa report.
The controversial decision to sack an award-winning Mexican radio host for commenting on allegations that President Felipe Calderón is an alcoholic has prompted protests and opened a debate on the relationship between concentrated media ownership and politically-motivated censorship.
Even as two imprisoned journalists are refusing to eat in protest against the Cuban government, on Saturday, Feb. 12, Cuban authorities freed another independent reporter -- who has spent the past eight years in prison — in the latest round of political prisoners being released from jail, reported the Miami Herald and the Associated Press.
Journalist Aguirre Peixoto, who was fired from his job in Bahia state after alleged pressure from the real estate industry, could be rehired by A Tarde newspaper, Bahia Notícias reports. However, the reporter may not be open to joining the paper again.
Panamanian journalists are developing the “My Transparent Panama” platform as a model digital tool that can be used to cover crime and corruption in Latin America. The project is an online digital map that plots citizen-provided information about incidents ranging from fraud and theft to murder and rape.
Brazil's ex-president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva criticized the "opinion makers" for trying to create differences between his government and that of his successor, President Dilma Rousseff, reported Estado de S. Paulo. Lula made the remarks at an event commemorating 31 years of the Workers Party (PT) on Feb. 10.