Honduran President Porfirio Lobo criticized media organizations for reporting on the roaring violence in the country, which includes the highest murder rate in the world at 92 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants.
The Salvadoran Association of Journalists (APES in Spanish) released its annual report on the advances and challenges to freedom of expression in the Central American country.
The Institute for Press and Society, IPYS, described a recent change in the legislative decree that regulates the National Defense System as a "serious attack" on the right to access information, freedom of expression and transparency.
Reactions were swift to the court's decision to suspend controversial articles in Argentina's new Media Law that would have required media giant Grupo Clarín to abandon some of its broadcast licenses last Friday, Dec. 7.
The president of Guatemala, Otto Pérez Molina, approved the reform to the General Telecommunications law, which extends leases on the current broadcast spectrum for another 20 years and weakens indigenous groups' access to radio frequencies, according to the newspaper Prensa Libre on Wednesday, Dec. 5.
The Federal Chamber on Civil and Commercial Matters of Argentina extended the cautionary measure on grounds of unconstitutionality requested by the media titan Grupo Clarín on two articles of the country's new media law, which was set to go into effect this Friday, Dec. 7, according to newspaper Clarín. The ruling means that the articles that refer to the possession of audiovisual media licenses will not go into effect until there is a ruling regarding their constitutionality.
Costa Rica’s highest court temporarily suspended the controversial Information Crimes Law that could send journalists and other individuals to prison for up to eight years for revealing government secrets, reported the newspaper La Nación on Saturday, Nov. 24.
Ecuador's president, Rafael Correa, proposed increasing "democratic controls" over information to transition freedom of expression into a "function of the State" during a press conference on Monday, Nov. 19, according to the news agency EFE.
Students took to the streets in downtown San José, Costa Rica on Thursday Nov. 15, to protest the country’s recently enacted and much reviled information crimes law, reported the Tico Times website.
The state congress of Veracruz, Mexico is considering a bill to reform the Gulf state's penal code to punish offenders with one to four years in prison for disturbing public order by publishing fasle alarms regarding emergencies or violent acts, reported the website Animal Político.