A former Ecuadorean journalist facing prison and millions of dollars in fines is seeking asylum in the United States, reported the Associated Press on Wednesday, Feb. 8.
Editors of a magazine in the tourist city of Cancún, Mexico, claimed that their publication was pirated on Feb. 5 in violation of the press law, the rights of the authors, and industrial property laws, according to NotiSureste.
An ex-paramilitary member in Colombia was sentenced to 24 years and two months in prison for killing journalist Álvaro Alonso Escobar 10 years ago, reported the Foundation for a Free Press.
Brazilian journalist Valdeck Filho was fired from the TV Aratu police program "In the Crosshairs" on Feb. 3, after declaring his support for the military police strike in the state of Bahia, reported the website Observador Político.
The Bolivian government announced that it will not move forward with a new press law but that it does intend to "bring the work of the press and journalism into line with the new Constitution," reported the television channel Eju TV.
An Ecuadoran law prohibiting the media from reporting on elections went into effect Saturday, Feb. 4, reported the news agency Agencia de Noticias del Ecuador y Sudamérica.
A Honduran journalist was kept from traveling to Brazil on Feb. 3, when he was ordered to appear in court, reported the Committee for Freedom of Expression in Honduras.
Award-winning Colombian journalist Hollman Morris, a former Harvard University Nieman Fellow, has decided to return to his home country "despite having received several threats," he said in an interview with the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas.
Cuban blogger Yoani Sánchez, recently nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for her work defending freedom of expression, was denied permission to leave the island to visit Brazil, according to the website Terra. The blogger tweeted that this was the 19th time she has been denied the right to enter and leave the country.
Still frustrated with the New York City Police Department's treatment of reporters covering the Occupy Wall Street protests, a group of journalists and media organizations sent a second letter to police, demanding "more steps to resolve reporter access issues," according to the Associated Press (AP).
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has released a report criticizing pending Ecuadorian electoral reforms that will prohibit the press from covering political campaigns and elections. According to CPJ, the electoral reform will go into effect Saturday, Feb. 4.
Accusations on Twitter and other social networks led the Journalistic Observatory to investigate claims that executives of the official Guatemalan newspaper, Diario de Centro América, forced employees to stay inside the building and took away their cellphones, according to the Guatemalan Center for Investigative Reports.