Victims and relatives of victims recognized through images published in newspapers and magazines and broadcast on television three officials from the Sao Paulo Civil Police accused of directly participating in acts of torture, sexual abuse, forced disappearances and murder during the military regime (1964-1985), according to the federal prosecutors office.
The Inter American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) warned that the sentencing of Peruvian journalist Fernando Santos Rojas to one year in jail for aggravated defamation severely limits freedom of expression.
The vice president of Guatemala, Rafael Espada, tried to sue Marta Yolanda Díaz-Durán for libel, insult and defamation after she wrote a column published a year ago in the newspaper Siglo Veintiuno, but the Constitutional Court this week dismissed the complaint on the grounds that the journalist only expressed her opinion in the media, reported Cerigua.
Argentine President Cristina Fernandez announced Tuesday, Aug. 24, that the country's lawyers will bring a lawsuit accusing Argentina's two largest newspapers, Clarín and La Nación, of illegally appropriating newsprint company Papel Prensa during the military dictatorship (1976-1983), reported the official news agency Télam, the Associated Press, and Agência Estado.
Mary Cuddehe, a U.S. journalist, was offered $20,000 to spy on plaintiffs in one of the biggest environmental lawsuits in Ecuador's history, Cuddehe revealed in a first-person account published in the Atlantic.
A São Paulo court suspended payments towards a more than $335,000 defamation judgment against Debate, a daily based in Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo in São Paulo state, O Estado de S. Paulo reports. According to Estado, the court ruled that the debt must still be paid, but the newspaper can still appeal to the Superior Court of Justice, the highest court for non-constitutional questions. Judge José Magdalena sued the newspaper in 1995 for an article that claimed his house and telephone were paid for by the local mayor’s office. The paper lost the case, and its owner, journalist Sérgio Fleury Moraes, said the fine wou
The prosecutor’s office has charged Perla Jaimes, the lawyer who both represents Globovisión owner Guillermo Zuloaga and the opposition station itself, with allegedly obstructing a court order during the raid of the businessman’s house last May, El Carabobeño reports.
The prosecutor's office believes it has sufficient evidence to charge Guillermo Zuloaga, president of the news station Globovisión, the only channel critical of the government still on the air in Venezuela, reported El Universal.
After already serving a six-month sentence, Ecuadorian journalist Fredi Aponte again is in court, this time for fraudulent bankruptcy, according to El Universo.
The debate over criminalization of opinions and information was swept under the rug again in Ecuador. The lawsuit against the opinion editor of El Universo newspaper, Emilio Palacio, ended in surprise after a high government official withdrew the libel charges against him, El Comercio and EFE report.