Mexican senators approved a proposal ("dictamen de ley") that would require federal authorities to investigate, prosecute, and punish crimes against journalists or any attacks affecting the rights to access of information, freedom of expression or of the press, according to a statement from the Senate.
Around the world, at least 46 journalists were killed for their work in 2011, and another 35 deaths are being investigated to determine whether they were journalism related, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists' (CPJ) annual report documenting attacks on the press, reported the news agency AFP. For the second year in a row, the CPJ report named Pakistan as the deadliest country for journalists, said Radio Free Europe, and CPJ said Mexico is first worldwide for retaliation against reporting done via social media.
National and international journalism associations denounced the attack that killed Brazilian journalist Paulo Roberto Cardoso Rodrigues, known as Paulo Rocaro, in the early hours Monday, Feb. 13, in Ponta Porã, Mato Grosso do Sul, on the border with Paraguay. Rocaro was editor in chief of the newspaper Jornal da Praça and of the news site Merco Sul News, where he frequently wrote about politics and drug trafficking.
Inspired by Colombia's Journalist Day, the Foundation for Press Freedom (FLIP in Spanish) presented a report expressing its concern over the state of freedom of expression in Colombia. The Colombian Federation of Journalists also released a statement noting that while there were fewer reporters killed in 2011, violence against journalists continues to rise in the Andean country.
“Mexico is a magical country where there are murders, but no murderers,” said the Mexican poet Homero Aridjis, protesting the rampant impunity in crimes against journalists during an international delegation of writers -- including several Nobel laureates -- organized by the group PEN International, held Sunday, Jan. 29, in Mexico City. The group, including Peruvian Mario Vargas Llosa and Toni Morrison of the United States, took out a full-page ad in the El Universal newspaper that was signed by 170 writers and celebrated the bravery of journalists in Mexico, according to the Associated Press.
The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) presented a formal complaint to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights for the unpunished killings of Colombian journalists, whose statue of limitation expires this year, reported the Associated Press.
Gunmen shot at the offices of the La Tribuna newspaper in Honduras early in the morning of Dec. 5, reported C-Libre.
Since Honduran President Porfirio Lobo took office on Jan. 27, 2010, following disputed elections, 16 journalists in the Central American country have been killed and none of the crimes have been solved. In a 2010 report, the Committee to Protect Journalists claimed the “murders [of press workers] occurred in a politically charged atmosphere of violence and lawlessness.” The violence's political undertones have raised concerns about impunity and freedom of expression in Honduras in the wake of the 2009 coup d’état that removed President Manuel Zelaya from office.
A criminal court in Honduras acquitted the main suspect in the killing of journalist David Meza Montesinos, who was shot to death in March 11 2010, reported Proceso.
More than 20 Latin American universities are participating in the Hemispheric Conference of Universities on Aug. 25 and Aug. 26, organized by the Inter American Press Association (IAPA).
The Mexican Attorney General's (PGR in Spanish) special prosecutor Gustavo Salas Chávez said more journalists were killed in Northern Mexico than anywhere else in the country, according to the newspaper Vanguardia.
Brazil’s Senate president, José Sarney, blocked an attempt to censure Senator Robert Requião, who forcefully took a journalists tape recorder, erased what was on it, and threatened to hit the media worker during an April interview, G1 reports.