After decades of a culture of virtually impenetrable secrecy within the Mexican government, in 2002 Mexico passed the Federal Access to Information and Personal Data Protection Act. Since then, it has become an often-cited model of how other governments should draft their own transparency laws.
Viltor García, a bodyguard for cable channel director Karen Rottman, had just finished his shift on Oct. 19 when he was shot and killed by attackers in a vehicle with tinted glass windows in Guatemala City, informed Reporters without Borders (RSF). Rottman is the director of Vea Canal, an independent cable channel critical of the nation's administration.
The press corps in Guatemala denounced new acts of agression against reporters in the country. The daily newspaper Siglo 21 claimed that indigenous reporter Lucrecia Mateo was assaulted on Sunday, Aug. 25, when she tried to cover a meeting about the installation of a hydroelectric dam in the Guatemalan department of Huehuetango. A group of opposition protesters beat the reporter and robbed her camera equipment, according to the news agency AFP.
A new period of violence against freedom of the press has begun in Guatemala, said the UN's special rapporteur for freedom of expression Frank La Rue in an opinion piece denouncing the recent wave of aggressions against journalists in the country.
Guatemalan reporter Carlos Alberto Orellana Chávez was killed on Monday, Aug. 19, in the town of San Bernardino, located in the province of Suchitepéquez, reported Cerigua. Orellana Chávez is the fourth reporter killed in Guatemala this year.
The director of a Guatemalan newspaper accused the government of trying to enter his house on two separate occasions last week, reported Spanish news agency EFE. However, federal officials denied that the agents had the intention of entering his home or intimidating him.
Guatemalan journalist and radio host Luis Lima was killed in the early morning of Tuesday, Aug. 6 in front of his radio station in the province of Zacapa, on the southeast side of the country, newspaper El País reported.
Ten investigative media platforms from Latin America combined forces to create ALiados, a network to strengthen mutual cooperation and find new ways to sustain independent journalism.
The news websites El Faro de El Salvador, Plaza Pública de Guatemala and Confidencial de Nicaragua are working on creating a consortium of Central American digital media outlets to cover the region.
Guatemalan President Otto Pérez Molina signed the document establishing the Program to Protect Journalists, which will be preventative in nature and follows similar examples in Mexico and Colombia.
On April 8, El Periódico, one of the principal independent newspapers in Guatemala, published an extensive and unflattering portrait of Vice President Roxana Baldetti.
Guatemalan journalist Luis Alberto Lemus Ruano was shot dead on Sunday, April 7, in the department of Jutiapa, near the Salvadoran border, reported the Guatemalan Information Centre.