Ecuador’s National Secretariat for Communications (SECOM) has placed the freedom of expression organization Fundamedios under its administrative control. The organization believes this action seeks to harass them and fears it could lead to its dissolution.
The Ecuadorian government has asked cartoonist Xavier Bonilla, known as Bonil, to appear before the Superintendent of Information and Communication and explain the contents of an editorial cartoon published in newspaper El Universo that officials are calling defamatory. Seven months after Ecuador’s new Communications Law came into effect and created the office of the Superintendent, Bonil is the first media worker to be summoned by the new agency.
Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission will investigate the Jan. 23 murder of a journalist in Guerrero. It is the first killing of a journalist in Mexico this year.
This past weekend, Guatemala’s highest elected officials, President Otto Pérez Molina and Vice President Roxana Baldetti withdrew two criminal complaints they filed in December – one for blackmail and contempt, the other for violence against women – against José Rubén Zamora, editor of the newspaper elPeriódico.
Three radio journalists in Guaviare, Colombia recently received death threats in response to their reporting on an upcoming vote that may remove the local governor from office. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), Erika Londoño, Gustavo Chicangana and Jorge Ramírez received the threats via multiple text messages sent to Londoño's phone.
A court ordered Guatemalan journalist and director of newspaper elPeriódico José Rubén Zamora Marroquín not to leave the country. His bank accounts were also frozen.
With 174 documented aggressions against media outlets, journalists and citizens, 2013 was one of the most violent years against freedom of expression in Ecuador, according to a recent report from NGO Fundamedios.
Juan Pablo Suárez, editor of the Argentine digital newspaper Última Hora, faces sedition charges after being accused of helping instigate the police strikes and widespread looting that swept the country last week, newspaper Clarín reported.
Juan Pablo Suárez, editor of the Argentine digital newspaper Última Hora, faces sedition charges after being accused of helping instigate the police strikes and widespread looting that swept the country last week, newspaper Clarín reported.
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro called for a boycott on several national newspapers after accusing them of having distorted the results of the recent municipal elections in the country, the Press and Society Institute informed.
Spanish-language TV network Univision has produced a new documentary on the government pressures and dangers that journalists face today throughout Latin America.
The Venezuelan government is suppressing news about the economic crisis in the country through attacks on journalists and the media, according to a report from the Committee to Protect Journalists.