Judicial censorship of newspapers and blogs is on the rise leading up to municipal elections in Brazil. On Monday, Sept. 3, journalist Fernando Conceição claimed that a mayoral candidate tried to censor him in the city of Salvador.
On Thursday, Aug. 30, the Ecuadorian magazine Vanguardia sued President Rafael Correa for $2 million in moral damages, along with the court costs and lawyer's fees, reported Europa Press and the newspaper El Comercio.
On Monday, Aug. 27, the criminal division of the Colombian Supreme Court reversed its decision to sue journalist Cecilia Orozco Tascón for libel and slander, reported the Foundation for Press Freedom. The Court charged Orozco on Aug. 23, after she published an opinion column in the newspaper El Espectador questioning the criminal division's decisions.
The administration of Bolivian President Evo Morales announced on Monday, Aug. 27, that it plans to sue the Brazilian magazine Veja for an article published in June linking Minister of the Presidency Juan Ramón Quintana to drug trafficking, reported the website Brasil 247.
Two newspapers and a news agency in Bolivia face charges of "diffusion and incitement of racism or discrimination." The news agency claims it only reported what President Evo Morales said in a speech, reported the newspaper La Razón.
On Thursday, Aug. 23, the Colombian Supreme Court announced a libel lawsuit against a journalist, and criticized commentaries published by another journalist, reported the newspaper El Tiempo and the magazine Semana. The court was upset over the columns that questioned and criticized some of the court's decisions.
The Bolivian government said that it would sue the Fides News Agency (ANF in Spanish) for alleged defamation against Bolivian President Evo Morales, although the case is still being analyzed by a legal team, reported the newspaper Los Tiempos.
In another ruling in favor of press freedom, on Tuesday, Aug. 21, a court in São Paulo, Brazil, rejected a $3.5 million lawsuit against the TV station TV Globo, reported Conjur.
The Cuban government accused the U.S. of paying millions of dollars to Florida journalists to make a defamation campaign against five Cuban agents jailed for life in 2001 on espionage charges, according to the news agency EFE.
According to a court in São Paulo, the Brazilian press has the right to release all material leaked by government agents and confidentiality only applies to the police or judicial authorities who are responsible for it, reported the Counsel's website on Wednesday, Aug. 15.
Troubled by the introduction of bills that would create information crimes in Peru, the Press and Society Institute (IPYS in Spanish) and several other international organizations penned an open letter to the Peruvian Congress regarding the right to freedom of information, reported the newspaper Perú21 on Tuesday, Aug. 7.
Currently in Brazil there are more than 4,000 licensed active community radio stations. If non-authorized radio stations were included, this number would drastically increase. The process for granting broadcasting licenses, however, is slow: in some cases, it can take 10 years to get a broadcast license. As such, it's not rare to find cases such as that of José Eduardo Rocha Santos, owner of a community radio in the state of Sergipe, who was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison for operating a radio station without a license.