The arrest and court case of journalist José Rubén Zamora raises suspicions of a strategy by the Guatemalan government to silence the press and even political opponents in the midst of an electoral campaign flooded with allegations of corruption, according to analyses by journalists and human rights experts.
The organization also noted that in Brazil, El Salvador, the United States, Guatemala, Mexico and Nicaragua the stigmatization of the media and journalists is on the rise.
Journalists arrived from the most dangerous states, and where we began to have contact and awareness of how dangerous it was to be a journalist in Mexico and in some regions.
According to Abraji's investigation, Pureza made constant references in his radio program to alleged irregularities committed in the administration of former Mayor João Batista Gomes Rodrigues, known as Batista Boiadeiro (PTB).
The organization recorded 30 cases in which police officers violently advanced against journalists, photographers and cameramen from digital, print and televised media outlets.
About 60 independent journalists have gone into exile, which in a country as small as Nicaragua is an important number proportionally speaking.
According to the Inter American Press Association (IAPA), 22 executives from the three publications were restricted from leaving Venezuela.
The Inter American Press Association's (IAPA) 67th General Assembly in Lima, Peru, ended with the organization issuing a series of resolutions and conclusions highlighting the fact that "attempts to silence the independent press" in Latin America have continued to mount in 2011, as evidenced by the rampant "physical violence, the murder of journalists and the impunity of these crimes, lawsuits, arbitrary arrests, verbal abuse, and the manipulation of government advertising to laws or restrictive bills."
Journalist Wilson Cabrera, whose community radio station was closed by the Ecuadorian government, was prohibited from traveling to the United States by judicial order, reported the newspaper El Universo.
An Ecuadoran court suspended journalist Emilio Palacio's three-year prison sentence and $40 million fine for defaming the Andean country's president, Rafael Correa, reported BBC Mundo.
The newspaper El Sol del Sur published a leaflet denouncing telephone threats it received, the sabotage of its website, and police aggression against reporters covering the expulsion of street vendors in Cuidad Madero in the border state of Tamaulipas.
Panamericana de Televisión reporter Carlos Comacho claims that he was beaten by five unidentified subjects when he arrived at his home in Lima, Perú, according to the newspaper El Comercio.