After approving a right of reply law in March 2012, the Constitution and Justice Commission (CCJ) of the Brazilian Senate will debate the issue this Thursday, March 27, said the Brazilian Association of Investigative Journalism (ABRAJI).
The criminal chamber of the National Court of Justice of Ecuador has declared the journalist Freddy Aponte innocent. Aponte had been facing five years in prison for "fraudulent insolvency" -- not being able to pay a fine -- said the newspaper La Hora.
Attempting to safeguard the public image of Brazilian federal deputies, the Chamber of Deputies’ attorney general, Cláudio Cajado, proposed a plan to Google that would streamline the process to remove online content deemed offensive
Colombian journalist Claudia Julieta Duque and former president Álvaro Uribe were unable to reach an agreement in the lawsuit for libel and defamation that Duque filed against Uribe, reported Caracol Radio.
Mexican journalist Ana Lilia Pérez was sued for moral damages by federal congressman Juan Bueno Torio, according to news agency CIMAC.
Former Haitian President René Préval testified privately on Thursday, March 7, as part of an effort to re-open a criminal investigation into the killing of muckraking journalist Jean Dominique, reported the Associated Press.
The President of the Justice Commission of the Chamber of Deputies of the Dominican Republic, Demostenes Martínez, announced yesterday that prison sentences for defamation and slander have been removed from the Penal Code reform, currently being reviewed in the legislature, said news website dr1.
In Brazil defamation currently carries a minimum sentence of only three months, but that could change to two years if a penal code reform project currently being discussed in the Senate is approved.
The presidents of three newspapers in the Dominican Republic have asked for the decriminalization of defamation, in the Law on Expression and Diffusion of Thought and in the Penal Code, on the grounds on unconstitutionality, reported the newspaper El Día.
In what has become a historic decision, the Council of State of Colombia ordered the National Police to correct a statement given in 1996 that affected two businessmen, said the newspaper El Tiempo. The Director of the Police will have to give a press conference and correct the information given to a television news program as an “exclusive” that linked two businessmen with a drug cartel, said the paper.
While freedom of expression remains a fundamental right guaranteed by the Brazilian Constitution, the court system has become an effective tool for crippling media organizations and silencing critical journalists and bloggers in the country. A timeline from the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas shows that there were 16 cases of the courts being used to censor journalists in 2012 alone.
A federal judge in Miami, Fla. said that a Haitian-American journalist defamed Haiti’s prime minister when he reported on the Caribbean country’s purchase of a telecommunications company, reported the Associated Press on Tuesday, Feb. 19.