Two armed men trying to break into a Honduran TV channel's offices, destroyed one of the station's mobile units early in the morning of Wednesday, March 28, reported the organization C-Libre.
Although about 800 journalists from 33 countries are covering Pope Benedict's visit to Cuba March 26- 28, the Cuban government denied visas for reporters and photographers from Florida and a journalist from the Spanish newspaper El País, according to reports by El Nuevo Herald and Diario de Cuba.
The Supreme Court of San Martín in Tarapoto, Peru, voided a journalist's prison sentence for defamation against a local mayor, reported the news site Crónica Viva.
On Tuesday, March 27, in a public hearing before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, journalist organizations called 2011 the worst year for the Venezuelan press because of the rise in attacks against reporters and news media, reported the AFP.
Less than a week after a Brazilian court prevented a journalist from criticizing the administration of the governor of Mato Grosso, a court in Pará forced a blogger to remove all stories from her website about a city councilman from Belém, the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo reported on Tuesday, March 20.
During an interview in Spain, Ecuadoran president Rafael Correa questioned the funding of the non-governmental organization Human Rights Watch (HRW), reported the newspaper La Hora. "Do you know who funds Human Rights Watch, is it the Sisters of Charity, the Sinaloa Cartel?" Correa said to the Spanish journalist who was interviewing him.
The Mexican newspaper Diario de Juárez accused the Department of Public Safety of refusing to grant official advertising to the newspaper since February 20.
On the afternoon of Monday, March 12, a cameraman working for TV Record was attacked while covering a traffic accident in Campo Grande, capital of the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso do Sul, reported the news site MS Record.
Reporters Without Borders criticized police violence against local and international journalists covering protests in Chile, and expressed concern for the safety of journalists in a statement released Monday, March 19.
Ernesto Pérez Balladares, the ex-president of Panama, filed a civil lawsuit against the newspaper La Prensa for $5.5 million, reported the newspaper La Estrella.
In 2011, 172 attacks against the Mexican press were registered, and nine of these were killings. That's up from the 155 attacks recorded in 2010, according to a report from the organization Article 19 released Tuesday, March 20. The report, Forced Silence: The State Complicit in Violence Against the Press, shows that public officials were responsible for more than half of these attacks, according to the magazine Proceso.
Just seven months from the upcoming presidential elections in Venezuela, attacks against the press have intensified, according to Reporters Without Borders.