Transparency and public information access advocates accused the Supreme Federal Court (STF) of censoring information about investigations against politicians and public officials, O Globo reports.
A Buenos Aires judge has ruled that demonstrators cannot block access to AGR, a printing company owned by the Clarín media group, and said the Security Ministry must take steps to guarantee the company’s ability to print, Clarín and La Nación newspapers report.
The Inter American Commission on Human Rights presented a complaint against Argentina before the Inter-American Court of the Organization of American States for violating the freedom of expression of two journalists who 15 years ago revealed that ex-President Carlos Menem had a child out of wedlock.
This year, Honduras was added to the list of most dangerous countries for journalists and the killing of HRN radio correspondent Henry Suazo the morning of Dec. 28 was one more on a growing list of crimes against journalists that remain unpunished.
Journalist José Luis Galdámez and his family deserve protection by Honduran authorities, according to an order from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, reported the Associated Press.
Freedom of expression activists spoke out against the island’s Legislative Assembly for trying to prosecute Brent Fuller, a journalist for the Caymanian Compass, for an article criticizing a plan to review the country’s information access laws in closed-door committee hearings.
Editors of Ecuador’s Vanguardia magazine have petitioned a court to order the return of 40 computers confiscated during a police raid on the magazine’s Quito headquarters. See reports in English by the Inter American Press Association and the local NGO Fundamedios.
A court's decision to shut down an online parody of Folha de S. Paulo has drawn international criticism. The site’s name and address parodied Folha de S. Paulo (The São Paulo Journal) with “Falha de S. Paulo” (The São Paulo Failure), which featured criticism and humorous fake headlines from the newspaper. It was taken offline by a September court order, and last week, a São Paulo court upheld the ruling, Portal Imprensa reports.
The National Assembly has expanded the powers of the Venezuelan Executive by granting the president decree powers and the authority to further regulate telecommunications, The Associated Press and Reuters report.
An unprecedented legal ruling announced this week holds Brazil responsible for the forced disappearance of more than 70 opponents of the military dictatorship (1964–1985) and says the government has violated the right of family members “to seek and receive information and to learn the truth.”
Journalists always live in a state of tension with their work. To uncover the truth, journalists must develop not only a broad understanding of issues of public interest, but they must also have the good journalistic sense to be at the right place at the right time to cover a story. However, for journalists who work in zones of conflict, such journalistic competence can mean death.
The Constitutional Court of Peru ruled that media outlets cannot make public secretly recorded phone calls when their content “affects personal or family privacy, or the private life of the intercepted party or third parties, unless it is of public interest or import,” Perú 21 reports.