Between 1995 and August 2010, 258 journalists were killed — or kidnapped and assumed killed — in Latin America, but only 59 of those cases have been successfully prosecuted. These numbers from the Inter American Press Association (IAPA) back up a new analysis from journalist Tyler Bridges who in his report referred to the “worst wave of violence against journalists ever in Latin America." This is the setting which prompted IAPA to develop the Impunity Project.
The Mexican government, media outlets on both sides of the border, and press organizations must do more to end danger faced by the press on Mexico’s northern border from drug-trafficking violence and impunity.
Anabel Hernández is pressing charges against Security Minister Genaro García Luna and one of his assistants, Luis Cárdenas Palomino, for an alleged plot to kill her, AFP and EFE report.
Luis Ángel Sas, an investigative journalist for elPeriódico, reported receiving death threats that made reference to his recent reports on Guatemalan military weapons that ended up in the hands of the Mexico-based criminal group Los Zetas, Cerigua reports. Sas – whose beat is drug trafficking, corruption, and crime – told Noticieros Televisa that he first received threats at the offices of elPeriódico while he was at an investigating organized crime conference in Panama. A recent report by a Guatemalan freedom of expression group called drug trafficking groups like Los Zetas one of the biggest threats to journalism
Drug trafficking and transnational organized crime are the among the new threats that Guatemalan journalists are facing, according to study on freedom of expression in the country, EFE reports.
Luis Horacio Nájera, who won asylum in Canada two years ago, was honored last week in Toronto by Canadian Journalists for Free Expression, for his reporting in the violent border city Ciudad Juárez. His Mexican colleague Emilio Gutiérrez Soto and three journalists from Cameroon were also awarded prizes, The Toronto Star reports.
The president of Panama’s National Journalism Council, Guillermo Antonio Adames, reported that he received threats from individuals close to President Ricardo Martinelli, La Estrella and Panamá América report.
Journalist Roberto Gálvez said he received insulting and threatening phone calls shortly after giving a statement to authorities investigating the shooting death of Mayor Aucayacu Wilder Miranda, reports Inforegión, where Gálvez is a regional correspondent.
A new report from the Fundación MEPI, an independent investigative journalism center, says that the regional press in Mexico cover less than 5 percent of killings, attacks and violence linked to organized crime in the country, and the silence imposed by the cartels has created "black holes of information."
Mexico’s Foundation for Freedom of Expression (Fundalex) and the Cádiz Press Association (APC) signed an agreement that will allow threatened Mexican journalists to seek refuge in Spain, EFE reports.
The border state newspaper El Diario de Chihuahua announced that two of its photographers had to leave the country after being threatened for publishing a photo of a man who died in a car accident in Ciudad Juárez, El Universal and La Jornada report.
The border state newspaper El Diario de Chihuahua announced that two of its photographers had to leave the country after being threatened for publishing a photo of a man who died in a car accident in Ciudad Juárez, El Universal and La Jornada report.