On Wednesday, March 26, four weeks after being kidnapped, beaten and threatened as a result of content published in a magazine he directed, Mexican journalist Gilberto Moreno Fontes took his own life in his home in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, according to news agency Proceso.
Ten days after the sudden resignation of the head of Mexico's Mechanism to Protect Journalists Juan Carlos Gutiérrez Contreras, members of the federal agency's independent advisory group revealed that more than half of the cases of threats and attacks against journalists that the Mechanism has received in the last two years haven't been reviewed yet, Animal Político reported.
Almost 200 cases of attacks and violations against journalists' rights were recorded in Argentina during 2013, an increase of 12.79 percent since 2012 and 48 percent since 2008, according to the Argentine Journalism Forum (FOPEA)'s most recent annual report released this week.
Several journalism organizations in Guatemala called President Otto Pérez to push for legal mechanisms to guarantee the safety conditions necessary to allow journalists to perform their duties. The demand comes after four journalists have been killed and 60 assaulted and threatened in the last 15 months.
Reporters from different news media gathered on Sunday Mar. 23 at Plaza Madariaga in Caracas to protest the repression against press workers at the hands of the National Guard.
A joint mission composed by members of several international and Mexican press freedom organizations reported on March 19 the results of their recent visit to Veracruz to investigate the killing of journalist Gregorio Jiménez de la Cruz, according to digital newspaper Terra.
The mass protests in Venezuela have led to 65 violations to freedom of expression, according to the Press and Society Institute (IPYS). As part of those violations, the organization published that, since the protests began on Feb. 12, 69 journalists have been affected by the situation. Among the violations are cases of aggressive and arbitrary arrests by police forces and attacks by protesters and government sympathizers.
Three reporters from the news network Noroeste were assaulted in the Mexican state of Sinaloa on Sunday, March 2, after municipal police attempted to disperse a protest supporting the recently captured drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, reported newspaper El Informador.
A Colombian journalist and his work partner were treated violently by the National Guard of Venezuela while covering protests on Feb. 14, reported the digital newspaper Infobae.
Police in the Mexican city of Orizaba, Veracruz, detained and beat a journalist who was covering merchant protests on Saturday, Feb. 22, reported Animal Político.
The Military Police detained and attacked fourteen journalists that were reporting on a protest that took place on Saturday Feb. 22 in the center of São Paulo against the World Cup, which will take place this summer, according to the Brazilian Association of Investigative Journalism (Abraji). At least five of the arrested journalists’ rights were violated even though they identified themselves as members of the press.
More than a hundred Honduran journalists and media workers were threatened or attacked between 2010 and 2013, according to a Feb. 18 announcement by the Committee for Human Rights (CONADEH), reported El Heraldo.