After being kidnapped for eight days, Venezuelan journalist Nairobi Pinto was safely released today April 14, Globovisión reported. Pinto was freed in the city of Cúa, where she was met and taken care of by municipal police and then moved to Caracas.
Honduran journalist Julio Ernesto Alvarado, from television channel Globo TV, was sentenced to 16 months of prison for defaming Belinda Flores Mendoza, dean of the School of Economic Sciences at the Autonomous University of Honduras.
The Foundation for Press Freedom (FLIP) in Colombia reported two recent aggressions against a journalist and a photographer by national police agents. These were added to the 57 attacks against the press registered during the first few months of 2014, of which 13, or 23 percent, were committed by police.
Three reporters resigned from Venezuelan TV station Globovisión on Mar. 28 in protest against the channel’s alleged censorship practices and the dismissal of their team of cameramen and technicians.
The Information and Communication Superintendence, the government department responsible for regulation the media in Ecuador, decided on Tuesday March 25 to fine Diario Extra 10 percent of its average income for the past three months for failing to rectify headlines in two cases.
Almost 200 cases of attacks and violations against journalists' rights were recorded in Argentina during 2013, an increase of 12.79 percent since 2012 and 48 percent since 2008, according to the Argentine Journalism Forum (FOPEA)'s most recent annual report released this week.
Several journalism organizations in Guatemala called President Otto Pérez to push for legal mechanisms to guarantee the safety conditions necessary to allow journalists to perform their duties. The demand comes after four journalists have been killed and 60 assaulted and threatened in the last 15 months.
Ecuadorian authorities issued last week an order to detain journalist and activist Fernando Villavicencio after he was sentenced to 18 months in prison. Villavicencio was found guilty of defaming President Rafael Correa, press freedom organization Fundamedios reported.
For Marianela Balbi, executive director of the Institute of Press and Society (IPYS) in Venezuela, the government of President Nicolás Maduro is censoring critical media outlets -- with tactics like the blockage of live broadcasts of the protests -- in an effort to prevent more people from joining the manifestations.
Costa Rica’s Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court has ruled that intelligence officials broke the law when they tapped into a journalist’s telephone line, the Tico Times reported.
A group of Colombian media organizations plans to send newsprint to Venezuelan newspapers, which are facing a shortage of the valuable resource and possible shutdowns, said the president of the Venezuelan daily El Nacional, Miguel Henrique Otero, according to the publication El Universal.
Members of the Venezuelan news chain Cadena Capriles protested against the censorship of Laura Weffer’s investigative piece on the demonstrations that have taken place for over a month in the country.