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.
The European Parliament awarded the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought to Cuban Guillermo Fariñas, the journalist and dissident who spent more than four months on a hunger strike in an effort to pressure authorities to free political prisoners on the island, reported the Associated Press and BBC.
Journalist Paulo Beringhs, host of a news program on the TV Brasil Central channel, funded by the government of Goiás state, declared live that his station received orders not to interview the opposition candidate for governor, Marconi Perillo, Portal Imprensa reports.
Reporters Without Borders released its annual press freedom index on Wednesday, Oct. 20, 2010, according to Radio Free Europe.
The president of Bolivia, Evo Morales, said he could not meet with a delegation from the Inter American Press Association (IAPA) that arrived in the country Monday, Oct. 18, to discuss the controversial anti-racism law that recently was approved, according to the newspaper La Prensa. Morales said his schedule was full and that he had to travel to Peru for a meeting with President Alan García, according to Prensa Latina.