One day after a shooting attack in Mazatlán, the newspaper Noroeste received new threatening phone calls, including messages demanding $15,000 in exchange for not blowing up the newspaper's building, reported EFE and Noroeste. Employees were evacuated because of the threats.
Paraguayan journalist Rosendo Duarte, correspondent for the newspaper ABC in the city of Salto del Guairá, on the border with Brazil, was threatened during his radio program on Wednesday, Aug. 25, ABC reported.
Alleged members of the organized crime group Los Zetas directly threatened the editors of La Jornada Zacatecas, Imagen, and El Diario NTR– all based in the state of Zacatecas– and demanded they put a letter denouncing the Mexican military on the front page of their newspapers, La Jornada reports.
The Paraguayan Journalists Union condemned an attack against Martín Caballero, a radio announcer from Radio Sagrado Corazón de Jesús in the city of Villa Hayes. The group also came out against attempts to censor the radio station.
An impending ruling from the Salvadoran Supreme Court has created uncertainty and concern among journalists in the country, and sparked a debate on the limits of freedom of expression, reported El Salvador and El Faro.
Journalists in the interior of Brazil are complaining of various attacks and threats involving politicians and their parties during the ongoing election period. Journalist Bruno de Lima, from the small state of Paraíba, in the northeast of the country, said he had received death threats after publishing stories about pedophilia in the state, explained Paraíba Agora.
The office of the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) expressed “deep concern” over threats received by Fausto Rosario Adames, the editor of the now-closed newspapers Clave and Clave Digital, after he had published articles about drug trafficking.
Faced with systematic attacks against journalists and the media in parts of Mexico, the United Nations (U.N.) and the Organization of American States (OAS) have proposed a new risk category for reporters who work in conflict zones that aren't within the definition of war outlined by international treaties, reported La Jornada.
More than 1,000 reporters, editors, camera operators and photographers took to the streets in Mexico City and other towns in 11 states in defense of freedom of expression, calling for an end to violence against journalists, which has claimed at least 64 lives in the last decade, and left another 11 missing, reported the Latin American Herald Tribune and CBS News.
Colombian Carina Solano Padilla received the Hellman/Hammett grant, from the organization Human Rights Watch, for journalists and writers who have faced political persecution, reported the news agency DPA.