At the end of its 66th Assembly, the Inter American Press Association (IAPA) decided to send 22 resolutions, the majority dealing with press freedom, to government officials and inter-American organizations.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has demanded a “thorough investigation” into the killing of crime reporter Carlos Guajardo to determine if members of the army shot him.
The 66th Inter American Press Association (IAPA) Assembly took place in Mérida, Mexico, where the group warned that press freedom in the continent was threatened by violence and political repression, The Canadian Press reports.
The National Archive of Brazil’s Revealed Memories project (Memórias Reveladas) – created to facilitate the release of dictatorship-era documents (1964-1985) – is now at the center of a debate between journalists and the authorities after its refusal to release documents during the election, O Globo reports. The document project justified its decision by claiming “journalists were misusing documents and seeking data about candidates involved in the electoral campaign.”
Member countries of the UN Human Rights Council criticized Honduras and sought more information about human right violations since the coup that unseated President Manuel Zelaya, and about the killings of nine journalists in 2010, Inter Press Service reports. (See this earlier story in English).
The Mexican authorities have presented a mechanism for protecting journalists to stop the attacks on reporters and the media that, in the last decade, have resulted in 65 killings, in addition to 12 disappearances in the past five years, reported CNN Mexico and La Jornada.
On Nov. 4, Honduras will have its Universal Periodic Review, an evaluation by the United Nations Human Rights Council. In the lead-up to this event, more than 32 press freedom organizations in the IFEX network have presented recommendations to combat the “deplorable human rights situation” in the country.
In what the Miami Herald calls a “bold if not brazen move,” Cuban authorities have urged Spain’s government to give $155,000 to a program to counter “daily lies” in European media.
A Peruvian court has sentenced journalist José Alejandro Godoy, the head of the blog Desde el Tercer Piso (From the Third Floor), to three years in prison, a fine of $107,000, and 120 days of social work for “aggravated defamation” against former minister and congressman Jorge Mufarech, El Comercio reports.
Félix García, a correspondent for several online media outlets and Radio ORO in the southern state of Oaxaca, has reported being attacked by alleged members of the state’s investigative police force, El Universal reports.
The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) has called on the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) to act on its denunciation of the 1997 killing of Mexican journalists Benjamín Flores González. The newspaper editor's killing remains unpunished.
Journalists increasingly are turning to Twitter to break stories, and even write stories ignored by traditional mainstream media.