While President Rafael Correa’s March 18 announcement that he was suing a pair of journalists is still the talk of the town, the leader announced another lawsuit – this time against an editorial writer and the directors of El Universo newspaper, Vistazo.com reports.
President Rafael Correa has initiated a lawsuit against two journalists who published a book alleging corrupt dealings that benefited the leader’s older brother, El Diario reports. According to La Hora, the suit is for $10 million.
A special court in San Salvador sentenced 11 of the 31 suspects charged in the 2009 killing of a photographer to between four and 30 years in prison, reported EFE and La Prensa Gráfica.
The nation’s highest court unanimously upheld a ruling that obliges the state to omit discriminatory criteria and to maintain “reasonable balance” in allocating government advertising, Hoy newspaper and EFE report.
Argentine journalist Rafael Morán, who spent four and a half months in prison during the dictatorship (1976-1983) for writing about a disappeared dissident, testified in Mendoza about crimes against humanity by the military, Clarin reports.
Journalist Maritânia Forlin has been formally indicted for her alleged role in trading police information for exclusives with drug traffickers, Terra reports. She was one of 25 individuals in Paraná state indicted for various crimes, including misrepresentation and criminal conspiracy, Gazeta do Povo explains.
Journalists give up their journalistic privilege to protect their notes if they fail to maintain their independence, a New York appeals court ruled earlier this month, reported the Wall Street Journal.
A judge in Mexico City ruled that Contralínea magazine be fined for publishing stories about contracts awarded by state-owned oil giant Pemex to private companies, stating the matter “is not of public interest,” SDP Noticias reports.
Residents of Posadas, capital of Misiones province (NE Argentina), demonstrated over the weekend in favor of freedom of expression, responding to last week’s closure of Channel 4. Ten military police officers went to the station Jan. 12 to enforce a court order to suspend its broadcasts. (See other stories here, in Spanish.)
The Inter American Commission on Human Rights presented a complaint against Argentina before the Inter-American Court of the Organization of American States for violating the freedom of expression of two journalists who 15 years ago revealed that ex-President Carlos Menem had a child out of wedlock.