A federal judge in Mexico said that MVS Radio's cancellation of the program of journalist Carmen Aristegui, which she hosted at ones of its stations for more than six years, was "illegal," according to the journalist’s lawyers.
Enrique Benjamín Solís Arzola, former mayor of Silao, Guanajuato, Mexico, was sentenced to two years in prison for ordering the attack on journalist Karla Janeth Silva Guerrero, from the newspaper Heraldo de León, in September 2014. Solís Arzola is the first public official to be sentenced in the country for assaulting a journalist, according to Animal Político.
“Innocent.” These were the words Ecuadorian journalist Martín Pallares used to summarize the judge’s decision in a July 3 hearing for a suit filed against the journalist by former President Rafael Correa. The ex-leader, who was not present at the hearing, sued Pallares on June 5 in response to an article he wrote.
The first lady of Brazil, Marcela Temer, has dropped her case against newspapers O Globo and Folha de S. Paulo, according to O Globo.
Mexican journalist and researcher Sergio Aguayo received the first of two psychological evaluations ordered by the judge in a case against him, after being sued by the former governor of the state of Coahuila de Zaragoza, Humberto Moreira.
A Såo Paulo court recently ruled that investigators could access Matais’ telephone records. The decision was related to a series of reports written by the journalist in Folha de S. Paulo newspaper in 2012. Matais now works at O Estado de S. Paulo.
The situation of press freedom on the American continent continues to face threats ranging from violence against journalists to the use of legal mechanisms, the adoption of restrictive laws and cyber attacks.
At the request of the prosecution, a criminal court in Bogotá, Colombia agreed to terminate the investigation for injuria (defamation) against journalist Juan Esteban Mejía Upegui, according to newspaper El Espectador.
A Peruvian court annulled the conviction of Rafael Léon Rodríguez, a Peruvian journalist who was sentenced on May 3 for aggravated defamation, La República reported. The original sentence carried a one-year suspended prison term and a payment of 6,000 nuevo soles (about US $1,800) in civil damages.
In Honduras, investigative journalist Ariel Armando D’Vicente Jarquín, 48, was sentenced to three years in prison for the crime of defamation for reporting on a former police chief, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).
Former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000) was acquitted of crimes against the public administration in the case of the “diarios chichas,” or yellow press, by a Supreme Court panel presided over by controversial Judge Javier Villa Stein, reported El Comercio.
The defamation conviction against a Peruvian journalist who was accused by former President Alan García Pérez has been overturned.