Renowned Brazilian journalist Fernando Rodrigues, who has worked as a reporter, editor, foreign correspondent, and columnist and was a Nieman Fellow in 2007, has been instrumental in the push for Brazil to finally adopt a freedom of information law. The president of the Brazilian Association for Investigative Journalism (Abraji), which is one of the world's top investigative groups, Rodrigues also played a key role in the 2004 launch of the Forum for the Right to Access Public Information. Due in part to years of Rodrigues' tireless efforts campaigning for freedom of information, Brazil finally is poised to enact a p
Guilherme Mendes, Carlos Batista, and Edmilson Luz for TV Liberal were arrested in the city of Acará, Pará, while reporting on complaints by users at a local health clinic, Portal ORM reports.
In response to criticism from journalists and media outlets, the Colombian government said a proposed law that punishes officials who leak confidential information will not affect the media and that journalism issues have their own jurisdiction, El Tiempo reports.
After years of proposed transparency laws that went nowhere, a freedom of information act is gaining momentum in Brazil, where newly elected President Dilma Rousseff is expected to finally sign such a law on May 3, World Press Freedom Day, according to Brazilian media like Valor and acritica.com. What's more, once it has an information access law in place, Brazil is expected to join the United States in leading an international transparency campaign, Valor said.
In another case of court-ordered censorship in Brazil, journalist Esmael Morais’ blog was taken down at the request of the governor of Paraná state, Beto Richa, Folha de São Paulo reports. The politician’s suit against the blog began during the 2010 electoral campaign season, when Morais posted a video comparing Richa to Adolf Hitler.
Colombian journalists and media outlets are concerned that a newly proposed intelligence law would punish public officials who leak information to the press and lead to censorship, RCN Radio reports.
The United States Department of State’s 2010 Human Rights Report says the relationship between the press and the government of Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa “continued to deteriorate” last year, EFE reports.
The state of freedom of expression has deteriorated throughout the Americas, concluded delegates at the Mid-Year meeting of the Inter American Press Association, held April 6-9 in San Diego, Ca.
Venezuela’s National Journalism Guild (CNP) and the National Press Workers’ Syndicate (SNTP) denounced a series of threats to freedom of expression from President Hugo Chávez’s government, highlighting the increasing lack of access to public information and impunity for crimes against journalists, El Universal reports.
Dissident Cuban journalist Albert Santiago Du Bouchet, who had been in jail since 2009 for defamation, was freed by the Cuban authorities and exiled to Spain, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) reports. The government had already released the journalists who were among the 52 dissidents jailed during the 2003 “Black Spring” crackdown.