More than 20 armed police officers searched the offices of a private television station in Port of Spain, the capital of Trinidad and Tobago on Jan. 1, according to the International Press Institute (IPI).
Despite Peruvian President Ollanta Humala's campaign promise to decriminalize press crimes, the number of jail and probation sentences against journalists continue to rise in the Andean nation, Reporters Without Borders (RSF in French) claimed on Jan. 5.
The Colombian magazine Semana warned that a proposal backed by the Venezuelan and Ecuadorean governments is aimed at weakening the Organization for American States' (OAS) Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression.
Journalists in Mexico and Ecuador had little to celebrate this year as they recognized Journalists' Day this week, according to the newspapers La Vanguardia and Hoy. Mexico, considered one of the world's most dangerous countries to practice journalism, remembered the seven journalists killed in 2011 on Jan. 4. Ecuador remembered a difficult year for freedom of expression on Jan. 5, following President Rafael Correa's aggressive stance against the media.
The Inter American Press Association's annual review of press freedom found 2011 to be one of the most "challenging and tragic years" for the region's journalists, the association (IAPA) said in a statement.
An Ecuadorian judge's decision to sentence Hoy newspaper director Jaime Mantilla Anderson to three months in prison for libel drew condemnation from the Inter American Commission of Human Rights' Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression, the Inter American Press Association and the Committee to Protect Journalists, reported the news agency EFE.
The Brazilian newspaper Diário do Litoral claimed that its journalists have been intimidated following the publication of a story accusing a beach condominium's security team in the southern coastal city of Guarujá of operating as a "militia," the newspaper stated in a letter released by the website Red on Jan. 2.
Argentina's Arab community spoke out against against a Dec. 31, 2011, cartoon published in the newspaper Clarín, where a man in sandals, turban, and a belt of dynamite was selling imported fireworks, reported the news agency UPI.
Mexican newspapers El Diario de Coahuila and El Heraldo de Saltillo criticized the private security business Serviprose, whose guards are accused of attacking and stealing from reporters in the northern city of Saltillo, for failing to comply with an agreement to pay damages.
An Argentine television reporter and cameraman were beaten, threatened with death, and ordered to strip when they tried to cover a human trafficking story about Bolivian families on a farm in the western province of Mendoza on Dec. 29, reported the official news agency Télam and Diario Uno.
Three Guatemalan journalists and a photographer are among 52 persons accused of participating in the kidnapping, torture, and killing of diplomats during this Central American country's civil war that lasted from 1960 to 1996.
The Brazilian Senate recently bucked a 2009 ruling by the South American country's Supreme Court when it approved a bill reestablishing the requirement that all practicing journalists have an advanced degree.