The president of El Salvador, Mauricio Funes, vetoed reforms to the Access to Public Information Law that would have weakened the institution overseeing the law's implementation, according to the website El Faro, on Friday, Feb. 15.
A bill proposed in Honduras would create an organization to regulate media content, according to La Prensa.
The Salvadoran Congress approved reforms to the Access to Public Information Law that strip the autonomous access to public information institute of the power to declassify secret documents and order public institutions to respond to requests for information, according to El Faro.
The Mexican Supreme Court declared laws that restrict information presented as part of a preliminary investigation are unconstitutional and restrict the public's right to access information, reported the newspaper Reforma.
On Friday, Feb. 1, Uruguayan President José Mujica announced that he would implement new media regulations in 2013, reported the newspaper El Diario. Mujica did not specify which regulations would be implemented but new media rules were a central part of his administration's political agenda, approved in 2012, noted the newspaper.
A government decree that would temporarily suspend tax credits enjoyed by the media in Honduras sparked controversy in the country, according to a report from the website Centinela Económico.
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.