Following the October murder of Mexican photojournalist Edgar Esqueda in San Luis Potosí, Mexico, a cellphone video sent to a former police officer spread on the internet. It showed Esqueda, bound and on his knees, offering the names of crime reporters at newspapers across the state. In response, San Luis Potosí Gov. Juan Manuel Carreras ordered immediate protection measures—a police patrol car for every reporter named in the video.
Colombia’s Foundation for Press Freedom (FLIP for its acronym in Spanish) rejected threats against journalists Jineth Bedoya Lima and Salud Hernández Mora, as well as political and social leaders, allegedly proffered by a block of the illegal armed group Águilas Negras. The organization also demanded that authorities guarantee protection so that the journalists can continue with their work.
“It’s been 17 years of this red accounting (cuenta roja) in which we have not stopped counting the number of journalists killed. There are 109, and a good part of them in the last two administrations,” said Daniela Pastrana, director of Mexican journalists organization Periodistas de a Pie. “But the counting began, paradoxically, with the start of the democratic transition. That is one of the things that I still cannot explain.”
Mexican journalist Cándido Ríos Vázquez was killed in southern Veracruz on Aug. 22, 2017 despite being under the federal government program to protect journalists.
Valuing journalistic work in Mexico, ending impunity of attacks against journalists and strengthening the guild are the preliminary objectives of the participants of the working groups of the #AgendaDePeriodistas initiative, which seeks to create an organization and a working plan to combat violence against the press in that country.
From her pedestal in the middle of Mexico City, the Angel of Independence looked upon the words “They are killing us” and “No to Silence,” written in white letters measuring several feet high. Journalists were protesting against the death of well-known colleague Javier Valdez Cárdenas who was killed on May 15 of this year in Sinaloa.
This article is part of the book, "Innovative Journalism in Latin America," published by the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas, with the help of Open Society Foundations' Program on Independent Journalism.
Metadata? Encryption? Backdoor? Tor Browser? VPN? PGP? When it comes to digital security for journalists, the amount of technical terms and acronyms can be scary. But tools to ensure online privacy can be crucial to protecting sources, which is why the site Privacidade para Jornalistas (Privacy for Journalists) has been launched in Brazil.
The recent signing of a resolution by the General Assembly of the Organization of American States (OAS) is now part of the working arguments used by the Office of the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR).
In response to allegations of 23 journalists injured during police repression of social protests in Paraguay, the government of that country announced the coming adoption of a security protocol for journalists at risk.