The Inter American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) warned that the sentencing of Peruvian journalist Fernando Santos Rojas to one year in jail for aggravated defamation severely limits freedom of expression.
Ayres Britto, of Brazil's Federal Supreme Court, granted an injunction the evening of Thursday, Aug. 26, against enforcement of a law that censors humor during election campaigns in Brazil. Britto responded partially to a complaint of unconstitutionality, filed by the Brazilian Association of Radio and TV Stations (ABERT), questioning restrictions of the electoral code (Law 9.504/97).
A journalist sentenced to prison, accused of slanderous propaganda and offending the honor of Osmar Calenge, a 2004 candidate for the City Council of Lagoa Santa, in Minas Gerais, entered a request for habeas corpus before the Federal Supreme Court, asking for the sentence to be dismissed, according to the court.
The Brazilian Association of Radio and Television Stations (ABERT), has decided to go to the Federal Supreme Court over two sections of the Election Law: paragraphs forbidding jokes about politicians and the prevention of broadcasters from disseminating opinions about party candidates during campaigns.
Radio station FM Cerrillos, out of San José de Cerrillos in the province of Salta in Argentina, is off the air after its transmission equipment was stolen, and a fire was started that left one person injured, reported La Hora de Jujuy and Noticias Iruya.
The vice president of Guatemala, Rafael Espada, tried to sue Marta Yolanda Díaz-Durán for libel, insult and defamation after she wrote a column published a year ago in the newspaper Siglo Veintiuno, but the Constitutional Court this week dismissed the complaint on the grounds that the journalist only expressed her opinion in the media, reported Cerigua.
In June, the U.S. embassy in Bogota denied renowned television journalist Hollman Morris a visa to come to the United States as a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University, permanently banning him from entry on the basis that the Patriot Act blocked him because of "terrorist ties.". After public outcry, however, the U.S. State Department in July reversed its decision.
Frank La Rue and Catalinta Botero, special rapporteurs for the United Nations and the Organization of American States, respectively, for freedom of expression, gave their preliminary observations from their official mission to Mexico, warning that the situation in the country was grave, reported BBC Mundo and El Universal.
The Argentine government today, Aug. 24, will release a 400-page report that supposedly shows ties between the country's two largest newspapers and the military dictatorship (1976-1983), reported the news agency Télam. The document analyzes the newspapers' purchase in 1976 of Papel Prensa, Agentina's largest producer of newsprint. The newspapers share ownership of the company with the Argentine government.
A group of comedians gathered Sunday, Aug. 22, on the beach of Copacabana, in Rio de Janeiro, to demonstrate against a law that bans parodies and jokes about candidates during election campaigns in Brazil, reported O Globo.
Cuba first digital magazine debuted earlier this month, thanks to independent blogger Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo, editor of "Voces", or Voices, reported the Miami Herald (in English), and El Nuevo Herald (in Spanish).
Even as controversy erupted in Venezuela over a ban on the publication of violent photos, in Colombia a senator from the ruling coalition has offered up a bill that would prohibit the publication of "mildly pornographic" or sensational images in print media and websites, reported El Espectador and the news agency Europa Press.