While reporters don helmets to cover violent protests in Nicaragua, human rights and press organizations are calling on the international community to pay attention to attacks on journalists and news media amidst protests against the government of President Daniel Ortega.
During the highly criticized Venezuelan presidential elections on May 20, monitors of freedom of expression recorded physical attacks on journalists as well as intimidation. It’s more of the same for a community of journalists that has been threatened physically, in the courts and online while covering growing political and societal unrest in recent years.
Numerous television and radio news outlets in Nicaragua were attacked or experienced signal interruptions during coverage of the wave of protests that erupted throughout the country due to a reform to the Social Security Law by the government of President Daniel Ortega.
At least 19 journalists and media professionals were attacked in various cities in Brazil between April 5 and 7 while working to cover former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (2003-2011) going to jail, according to records from the Brazilian Association of Investigative Journalism (Abraji). The assaults, which came from supporters of Lula and the Military Police, were repudiated by press organizations in Brazil and Latin America.
The Brazilian Civil Police have accused Renato Oliveira, deputy secretary of Embu das Artes prefecture, in the São Paulo metropolitan region, of being the author of an attack against journalist Gabriel Barbosa da Silva, which occurred on Dec. 28, 2017.
The Mexican Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and various press advocates have called on the Mexican government to investigate reported attacks on journalists that took place Jan. 7 in Concepción, Acapulco in the state of Guerrero.
More than a dozen journalists were wounded by security forces and protesters during a demonstration in Buenos Aires, Argentina on Dec. 14. According to various Argentine media outlets, this was one of the most brutal repressions against the press and citizen protesters so far under the government of current Argentine President Mauricio Macri.
The Mexican Attorney General's Office (PGR for its acronym in Spanish) announced on Dec. 2 that a man identified as Fabricio "N" in Mexicali, capital of the state of Baja California, was arrested and accused of being responsible for the abduction of a journalist and theft of his materials in February of this year.
The case of Claudia Julieta Duque, who was persecuted and tortured psychologically in 2001 and 2004, has been classified as a crime against humanity by the Attorney General of the Nation.
A journalist who has reported being threatened multiple times and then being dismissed from his job this month was briefly detained by officials in the city of Coro in western Venezuela.