After a TV crew was taken hostage in Paraná, a station invaded in Goiania and eight reporters beaten in São Paulo, on March 10, UNESCO and representatives of Brazilian media corporations delivered a letter to the country’s Minister of Social Communication calling for action to protect journalists and to ensure the media can work safely during the coverage of corruption investigations in the country.
According to witnesses, two people on a motorcycle fired eight shots at a car parked in the garage of Brazilian journalist Kenedy Salomé Lenk in the early morning hours of March 10, reported newspaper O Globo. The journalist, his wife and daughter were asleep inside the house at the time.
Mexican authorities confirmed that a body found in the state of Puebla is that of journalist Anabel Flores Salazar, who was kidnapped from her house in Veracruz this past Monday, according to magazine Proceso.
Journalist Anabel Flores Salazar was abducted by a group of armed men who entered her home in Orizaba, Veracruz, Mexico, in the early hours of Feb. 8, according to Animal Político.
Journalists in Haiti and the Dominican Republic urged the current Haitian President Michel Martelly to give them all guarantees necessary to properly cover the electoral process, which, they say, is taking place in the midst of attacks on freedom of expression by the outgoing government.
If the Attorney General of the Republic of El Salvador accepts a request from the National Police, El Diario de Hoy could become the first media outlet in the country to be investigated for the crime of "justification of acts of terrorism." Those responsible could be sentenced up to 8 years in prison, according to the Special Law against Acts of Terrorism.
More journalists were injured by the military police during protests against increased transportation fares in São Paulo on Jan. 21. This is in addition to the assaults reported during the military police’s repression of demonstrations on Jan. 12 when at least nine media workers were wounded.
In a violent action carried out by the military police to disperse protesters in São Paulo during a demonstration against increased transportation fares held on Tuesday, Jan. 12, at least nine media professionals were wounded, according to Abraji (the Brazilian Association for Investigative Journalism).
Mexican journalist Jorge Martínez Castañeda was hospitalized after being brutally beaten while walking with his grandson in the main square of Tacámbaro, in Michoacán state, on Jan. 6.
Since 2009, Venezuela's National Assembly chamber had been closed to journalists during sessions. That changed on Jan. 5 when, after a six-year absence, media workers from national and international press outlets were allowed inside to cover the swearing in of members of the country's new legislative body.