Five years after a 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck Haiti, the country's journalists face threats, harassment, and silencing by government supporters and, on occasion, the president himself. While journalism had an urgent and imperative role in the aftermath of the earthquake, Haitian journalists have maintained a steady criticism of reconstruction efforts and, as a result, have been vilified by authorities.
In Brazil and Mexico, ranked seventh and eleventh by the Committee to Protect Journalists as the countries with the highest levels of impunity in the murder of journalists, two advocacy groups are mapping these attacks in an effort to increase their security.
After being sentenced to seven months in prison for writing a fictional essay, journalist Cristian Góes has been ordered to pay 30 thousand Brazilian Reals (US$11,300) in compensation for moral damages to judge Edson Ulisses, vice president of the Sergipe Justice Tribunal.
Honduras has defied the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) and decided to uphold an order to ban journalist Julio Ernesto Alvarado from work for 16 months.
Impunity in the murder of journalists is not new in Latin America. In the last decade, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) reported 72 instances of journalists killed for their work. About 78 percent of these cases faced complete or partial impunity. But in Mexico, Colombia and Brazil, levels of impunity have surpassed those of any other Latin American country, according to CPJ’s 2014 Global Impunity Index.
An upcoming vote that could alter the laws governing mass media in Ecuador has stoked fears in the Andean nation that the end of a free press in near.
In a hearing before the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights (IACHR), a group of Venezuelan journalists, union members, and local NGOs have firmly denounced ongoing censorship of the press in Venezuela.
The Mexican news site SinEmbargo has demanded that authorities investigate a series of attacks, threats, and defamatory acts that have targeted the publication regularly since Oct. 8, shortly after the disappearance of 43 students in Ayotzinapa in the state of Guerrero.
The 70th General Assembly of the Inter American Press Association (IAPA), an organization that brings together media owners and editors of the Americas, condemned the “direct and indirect censorship and physical attacks on journalists” that have occurred in the last six months.
Journalist and activist Lydia Cacho Ribeiro was abducted in the Mexican state of Quintana Roo and tortured en route to Puebla after publishing a book, titled the "The Demons of Eden," on an investigation that linked local politicians and police to a child pornography and prostitution network.
A Honduran appellate court has reinstated a 16-month journalism ban on news anchor Julio Ernesto Alvarado, the latest in a rally of court decisions and appeals since Alvarado was charged with criminal defamation for segments, alleging corrupt behavior of a university dean, aired on his TV program “Mi Nación” (My Nation) in 2006.
Increasing pressure on traditional media in Venezuela over recent years has forced journalists critical of the government to move online in search of refuge. The transition has spurred the creation of several small publications online and has changed the way that Venezuelans, especially those critical of the government, share and receive information.