A Panamericana Television crew was attacked by a group of thirty people while they covered a protest against a Lima law firm, headed by Orellana Rengifo, with alleged links to organized crime, La República reports. Cameraman Juan Carlos Vera’s right eye was injured by a rock and journalist Renzo Santana had multiple facial wounds, El Comercio explains.
El Financiero newspaper reports that Costa Rica’s Guild of Journalists (Colper) and the Institute for Press and Freedom of Expression (IPLEX) have joined with the paper in a suit against the Ministry of Labor for refusing to release data about firms that fail to comply with minimum wage laws.
Journalists give up their journalistic privilege to protect their notes if they fail to maintain their independence, a New York appeals court ruled earlier this month, reported the Wall Street Journal.
Colombian journalist Claudia López refused to retract her statements and declared her innocence at her trial for allegedly defaming ex-President Ernesto Samper, El País and Caracol Radio report.
Venezuelan activists and journalists have come together to demand increased pluralism in the state-run media, free access to public information, and for the government to return confiscated radio and TV stations to their original owners, El Nacional reports.
The house of Orley Antunes, editor of the Brazilian newspaper Morretes Notícia, was was the target of a bomb attack on Jan. 17 in the town of Morretes in the southern coastal state of Paraná, reported that same newspaper.
Rosío Flores, a journalist for the newspaper El Diario, was beaten by employees of the city council in El Alto, in western Bolivia, El Diario reported.
Prominent Haitian journalist Michele Montas, along with three former political prisoners, has filed a criminal lawsuit against former dictator Jean Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier, accusing him of torture, illegal detention, and violations of civil and political rights, reported the Committee to Protect Journalists.
The Nicaraguan newspaper El Nuevo Diario reported that its journalists were threatened after publishing articles about supposed corruption in the government of President Daniel Ortega, according to the local press. The cases of corruption and nepotism are related to the Finance Ministry and the equivalent of the IRS, the newspaper said.
Bolivian prosecutor Marcelo Soza has ordered the media to reveal the source of a video in which a key witness in a terrorism investigation was allegedly paid to flee the country, Jornadanet reports.
Clarín and La Nación newspapers report that for five hours, 50 demonstrators obstructed the circulation of their Saturday editions by blocking trucks leaving the papers’ printing plants. The Argentine Association of Journalistic Entities (ADEPA) called this “one of the most serious attacks on press freedom in recent times in Argentina.”
Radio Faluma Bimetu/Coco Dulce, a station serving the Afro-Caribbean Garifuna community in the Honduran coastal city of Triunfo de la Cruz, suspended transmissions this weekend due to “increasing threats and hostility” in the lead up to local elections, the World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters (AMARC) reports.