Los Urabeños and Los Rastrojos, paramilitary groups in Colombia, have published hits lists threatening a combined ten journalists with consequences if they don’t immediately abandon their posts and leave the towns where they work.
Uruguayan journalist and lawyer Edison Lanza was confirmed before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) as the new Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression, replacing Colombian Catalina Botero. Lanza began on October 6 a three-year term, taking over the Special Rapporteur's Office at the Organization of American States (OAS).
The Organization of American States' special rapporteur for Freedom of Expression released a statement in which it “express[ed] its deepest concern for the deterioration of the right to freedom of expression in Venezuela.”
In the aftermath of the severe beating of a young journalist, a police chief is on the run and journalists are rallying for protection of freedom of expression across Mexico.
On September 13, the Guatemalan government posted photographs of an unpublished article planned to run three days later on the newspaper elPeriódico, raising questions as to whether or not the government had been spying on the newsroom.
A leading Venezuelan newspaper that was recently sold to anonymous investors appears to be shifting its opposition editorial line weeks after pledging not to. The managing editor at El Universal, Elides Rojas, told the International Press Institute (IPI) that the newspaper’s new president had “ordered a complete revision of the opinion section” and had suspended or dismissed editorial staff.
As if the dangers of covering crime in one of the riskiest regions of the world for journalists weren’t enough, reporters in Northern Mexico now face new obstacles allegedly created by the authorities who were supposed to protect them.
When Edison Lanza becomes the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights’ Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression in October he will step into a political battle in the Organization of American States (OAS) over the role of his office in the region.
A group of 60 journalists in Nicaragua’s capital city gathered in the offices of the national police to demand investigations into recent attacks on the press, which they allege are going unaddressed.
A new report by Freedom of Expression advocacy organization Article 19-Mexico attributed a continuing trend of attacks against journalists to the Mexican government’s routine failure to prosecute attackers.
Advances on the digital revolution, attacks on journalists, and state-media conflict have marked journalism in Latin America and the Caribbean, according to UNESCO's 2014 report “World Trends in Freedom of Expression and Media Development”. The document highlights state harassment of journalists, challenges reforming outdated media laws, media concentration, lack of journalistic resources and training, and drug-related journalistic deaths as some of the major problems facing journalists in the region.
Private news enterprises have weathered a long history of crippling attacks from the Venezuelan government. Some media owners are now giving up and selling their properties.