The regional court in Cundinamarca, Colombia, upheld a criminal libel sentence against a Colombian journalist on Wednesday, Feb. 29, for publishing an editorial criticizing former governor and senator María Leonor Serrano de Camargo, reported the Press Freedom Foundation (FLIP in Spanish).
The Florida city of Lauderdale Lakes has sent local blogger Chaz Stevens a "cease-and-desist" legal notice, saying the city will sue for civil damages if the blogger continues his "repeated false allegations, threats, attempted extortion, slander, libel, defamation, and invasion of privacy," reported the Broward-Palm Beach New Times.
After international outcry, on Monday, Feb. 27, Ecuadoran president Rafael Correa announced his decision to pardon journalists in the $40 million libel suit against the newspaper El Universo, its three owners and a former newspaper columnist, who were facing three years in prison. The president also dismissed the fine against the authors of a book detailing the president's alleged acts of nepotism, reported the Associated Press.
On Friday, Feb. 17, a Venezuelan court began hearing the appeal of Globovisión to overturn a $2.1 million fine, according to the newspaper El Diario. The Globovisión television news agency has been critical of Hugo Chavez's government, and the fine was levied against the station in October of 2011 for its reporting.
After the Colombian Association of Newspaper Editors and Media (Andiarios) decided to run the opinion column that prompted the libel lawsuit by Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa, newspapers all over Latin America decided to follow suit on Thursday, Feb. 23, reported the Ecuadorian newspaper El Universo, the daily being sued by Correa.
A coalition of 29 news outlets and organizations has filed a brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals asking the court to uphold a lower-court's decision blocking prosecutors from forcing New York Times reporter James Risen to reveal his sources, reported Politico. The amicus brief, filed on behalf of the news groups on Tuesday, Feb. 21, argues that "the confidentiality of journalists’ communications with their sources has been vital to ensuring that the press effectively performs its constitutionally protected role of disseminating information to the public."
The Brazilian news website Congresso em Foco was acquitted of defamation in the first of one of many lawsuits brought against the site, which published a series of reports on the existence of salaries higher than the constitutional ceiling for politicians, authorities and civil servants in the executive, legislative and judiciary branches, reported the Forum for the Right to Access Public Information.
In an article titled "Will the land grabbers win?" and published Saturday, Feb. 11, the editor of the Brazilian newspaper Jornal Pessoal, Lúcio Flávio Pinto, reported that the Supreme Court denied his appeal to a lawsuit filed by one of country´s largest construction companies and ordered the journalist to pay roughly $4,600 in moral damages, according to the website Socioambiental.
"This demonstrates that you can prosecute not only the clowns, but also the owner of the circus," said Ecuadoran president Rafael Correa as he celebrated the high court's ruling upholding the defamation sentence against the owners of the newspaper El Universo, the same newspaper reported Thursday, Feb. 16.
Just weeks after launching NewsRight, a company aimed at monitoring the unauthorized use of copyrighted material, on Tuesday, Feb. 14, the Associated Press (AP) sued Meltwater News for copyright infringement and “hot news” misappropriation, the AP said in a statement.