The wave of violence against journalists in Mexico appears to have no end. Even as Mexican media outlets on June 9 reported the kidnapping of journalist Marco Antonio López Ortiz, information chief for the newspaper Novedades Acapulco in the state of Veracruz, journalists remained on alert because of the beating journalist Carlos de Jesús Rodríguez, director of the news site Gobernantes.com, suffered while in jail.
A group of demonstrators threatened and beat three Mexican journalists from the newspaper Noticias, Voz e Imagen de Oaxaca after invading the newspaper's offices in the city of Oaxaca, in Southeastern Mexico, and painting the newspaper's facade with anti-press slogans, reported the National Center of Social Communication (CENCOS).
Reporters Without Borders and the World Association of Community Radios for Latin America and the Caribbean (AMARC-ALC in Spanish) expressed their concern and the readmittance without conditions of Honduras to the Organization of American States (OAS), from which the country has been suspended after the June 2009 coup, reported Hora Cero.
Journalists who have been sexually assaulted in the line of work have been reluctant to step forward for fear of being reassigned, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) revealed June 7 in a new report "The Silencing Crime: Sexual Violence and Journalists."
Press freedom organizations and journalist unions have united to express their concern for the future of press freedom in Ecuador because of the tension between the government and the media, which has intensified in recent months after lawsuits President Rafael Correa has filed against reporters and media owners.
The Dominican Journalism Guild (CPD) called on the authorities to end the wave of aggression faced by media workers in the Dominican Republic, Listín Diario reports. The CPD says there have been more than 30 incidents against members of the press in 2011.
Journalist Moreira Neto reports in his blog that Councilman Zé Gomes allegedly attacked him after a June 3 council meeting in the northern city of Paço do Lumiar, Maranhão.
Journalist Mario Esteban López managed to escape with his life after the matches were too wet for his kidnappers to light the more than two gallons of gasoline they poured on him, EFE reports.
A grenade was launched against the offices of the newspaper Vanguardia, in Saltillo, in the northern Mexican state of Coahuila. No one was injured, but the newspaper suffered material damages, according to CNN México.
Héctor Rodríguez, the news director for La Veterana radio in the southeastern Colombian city of Popayán, escaped a May 26 attempted shooting unharmed, El País reports.