"Ecuador is in the midst of a press freedom crisis," International Press Institute (IPI) Deputy Director Anthony Mills said on Tuesday, Oct. 23, on the group's website. Mills' words were part of a press release announcing the final report of IPI's press freedom mission to the Andean country from May 7 to 11.
Fundamedios, a press organization, accused the Ecuadorian government of waging a smear campaign against it and private media in the Andean country, according to a statement on its website.
The Argentine Journalism Forum (FOPEA in Spanish) denounced the "serious harassment" facing the media in a local community, the organization reported in a statement on its website on Tuesday, Oct. 16. According to FOPEA, this is the third time dispatchers for the newspaper El Debate have been attacked in Zárate, Buenos Aires, while delivering the publication.
The newspaper El Espectador de Colombia claimed the Attorney General of Colombia threatened to censor it, the publication said in an editorial published Wednesday, Oct. 16, reported the Associated Press (AP).
Several Caribbean nations have pledged to reform their criminal defamation laws but must continue to work to fully repeal them, according to a new report published by the International Press Institute (IPI).
The Argentine Audiovisual Communication Services Law, also known as the Media Law, set to take effect Dec. 7, has caught the attention of press freedom organizations across the world.
The 68th Inter American Press Association (IAPA) General Assembly will conclude Tuesday, Oct. 16, with debates focused on the future of freedom of expression and journalism in the Americas. Since Friday, Oct. 12, reporters, media owners and critics have been meeting in São Paulo, Brazil to discuss crimes against the press, the sustainability of journalism, digital journalism and copyright rules.
The Press and Society Institute (IPYS in Spanish) of Venezuela recorded 19 incidents that affected press freedom in the country during the presidential elections that took place on Sunday, Oct. 7, the group said in a report released on Oct. 11. According to IPYS Venezuela, the events happened between the week before the elections and the days after the results were announced.
The Global Editors Network (GEN) released a statement on its website calling attention to the Argentine government's attacks against the press in what it described as a "press freedom crisis." GEN warned that the government's intentions to break up Grupo Clarín and seize its assets on Dec. 7 is a threat to press freedom in Latin America.
"Maras" and criminal gangs exerted the greatest censorship against the Guatemalan press between July and September 2012, according to a trimester report from the Journalists Observatory of the Center of Informative Reports on Guatemala (CERIGUA in Spanish).
A Peruvian journalist working in the area of human rights received two phone calls with death threats and an envelope with four bullets on Oct. 4, according to the Press and Society Institute, or IPYS. The relatives of Rosario Huayanca Zapata, who works for the Human Rights Commission of Ica (in the south-central region of the country), received the phone calls, while the envelope was found at her work.
Prompted by the killing of Luis Henrique Georges, owner of the newspaper Jornal da Praça, in the city of Ponta Porã, Mato Grosso do Sul, Reporters Without Borders (RSF in French) warned about the "elevated level of insecurity facing the practice of journalism in certain regions of the country," reported the news agency EFE.