A Mexican criminal organization is offering a reward for information about the administrator of a Facebook page and Twitter account, who over the last year has been reporting on violent crime in the state of Tamaulipas, one of the areas most affected by the country’s drug war, according to the magazine Proceso.
The São Paulo State Union of Professional Journalists denounced threats journalists received and other obstacles they faced while reporting in the interior of the state at the beginning of 2013, according to a statement form the organization on Feb. 13.
An exhaustive report from the Committee to Protect Journalists on the situation for journalists around the world placed Brazil and Ecuador among the top ten countries where press freedom suffered the most during 2012, and named Mexico as the country with the most missing journalists in the world.
During the forum "Journalists: harm, memory and healing" on Feb. 8, in Bogota, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos recognized the work of renowned journalist Hollman Morris. For the journalist, who former-president Álvaro Uribe accused of being allied with the FARC and had been followed by state intelligence agents, the acknowledgement could mark an positive turn in his relationship with the government.
The Press Freedom Foundation (FLIP in Spanish) celebrated the Day of the Journalist in Colombia on Saturday, Feb. 9, with the release of its 2012 report on the state of press freedom in Colombia. Click here to read the full report (in Spanish).
The Brazilian newspaper Diario da Região reported that city councilman Cesar Gelsi threatened a political reporter for the publication, Rodrigo Lima. The threats followed articles the journalist published calling Gelsi "the living-dead of politics" and included him in a list of officials charged with failing to pay backed taxes.
President of the Venezuelan National Journalists' Union (CNP in Spanish), Tinedo Guía, requested more protection for journalists who cover the country's legislature, reported the newspaper El Universal. On Tuesday, Feb. 5, reporters from private media organizations were prevented from covering an event at the National Assembly in Caracas.
A Venezuelan security agency open an inquiry into a journalist with the purpose of pressing charges against him for "instigating crime" with his articles about the killing of a prison gang leader in the city of Maracaibo, according to the website El Oriente.
A Peruvian journalist was shot from a truck by at least three unknown attackers while he was riding his motorcycle, said the news site RPP Noticias. The attack against Juan Carlos Yaya Salcedo took place in Lima on Tuesday Feb. 5, the site added.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and Reporters Without Borders (RSF in French) called on the Colombian authorities to provide more protection for journalists threatened in the country during the past month, according to statements from both groups.
The governor of the Mexican state of Colima Mario Anguiano said last week that the federal government agreed with state governments not to report on violence to reduce the perception of insecurity in the country, according to the website SDP Noticias.
Colombia started off 2013 with a series of attacks on the press, including death threats against three journalists, censorship at the hands of criminal gangs and the interrupted distribution of a newspaper in the department of Sucre, reported the Press Freedom Foundation, FLIP, in a press release Thursday, Jan. 31.