After a series of increasingly aggressive threats from an ex-commander of the Rondas Ostensivas Tobias de Aguiar (ROTA in Portuguese), an arm of the São Paulo Military Police, the newspaper Folha de São Paulo moved its reporter André Caramante to an undisclosed location for his security, reported the newspaper Brasil de Fato.
A Guatemalan judge sentenced the vice-president of the Safety Commission of Panajachel, in the department of Sololá in southern Guatemala to three years and eight months in jail for discriminating against and threatening a journalist, according to the Center for Informative Reports of Guatemala (Cerigua).
A new program from the Center for Journalism and Public Ethics (CEPET in Spanish) in Mexico aims to reduce the emotional and mental stress journalists covering organized crime and violence face in their jobs, announced the organization.
Mexican journalist Lydia Cacho reported another death threat due to her work, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).
Mexican President Felipe Calderón signed a new law to protect journalists on Friday, June 22, reported the Organización Editorial Mexicana.
A Mexican official confirmed that journalist Stephania Cardoso is currently under the protection of the federal government, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) reported Friday, June 22.
On Wednesday, June 20, two UN Special Rapporteurs called for better protection for journalists during the Human Rights Council meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, reported the news site Rfi.
To mark World Refugee Day on Wednesday, June 20, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) released its latest report showing 57 journalists were forced into exile between June 1, 2011, and May 31, 2012. Most of the exiled journalists (seven) came from Somalia, and most (15) fled to the United States. More than half (58 percent) went into exile because of the threat of violence, and 46 percent were exiled because of the threat of imprisonment.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange sought political asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where since December 2010 Assange has been under house arrest because Sweden requested his extradition after he was accused of sexually assaulting two women in Stockholm in August 2010, reported the Guardian and the Wall Street Journal. As the Guardian noted, Assange, facing potential espionage charges that could be brought by the United States, feels it would be harder to be extradited to the United States from Ecuador than from Sweden.
A Mexican journalist who has been missing for a week ago called a radio program on Friday, June 15, to say that she and her two-year-old son were alive and seeking protection from federal authorities, reported Notimex.
About 25 international organizations that advocate for freedom of expression, as well as more than 50 journalists and news media outlets, many of whom participated in the 10th Austin Forum on Journalism in the Americas, signed a petition urging state authorities of Veracruz, as well as the Mexican federal government, to protect the safety of journalists and to solve the nine killings of Veracruz reporters in the last 18 months. The petition was published on Monday, June 18, four days after the killing of reporter Víctor Báez, who was found on Thursday, June 14, in the capital of Veracruz.
After Brazil initially objected to the United Nations' Action Plan to improve journalists' safety and fight impunity, Ambassador Maria Luiza Ribeiro Viotti, Brazilian representative at the United Nations, sent a letter to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) saying that the country supports the program, CPJ said on Wednesday, June 13.