The recent case of stigmatization against Semana columnist Daniel Samper Ospina is just one example of the new types of threats facing journalists in Colombia as the deadly violence of decades past plummets.
Enrique Benjamín Solís Arzola, former mayor of Silao, Guanajuato, Mexico, was sentenced to two years in prison for ordering the attack on journalist Karla Janeth Silva Guerrero, from the newspaper Heraldo de León, in September 2014. Solís Arzola is the first public official to be sentenced in the country for assaulting a journalist, according to Animal Político.
Chilean journalist and photographer Rafael Mella Latorre recently testified before the Paraguayan justice system as a victim in the criminal trial for torture carried out by the government during the dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner (1980-1989), EFE reported.
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.
The State Attorney General’s Office of Michoacán announced on June 26 that the remains of missing journalist Salvador Adame Pardo have been found on an empty field along a highway between Nueva Italia and Lombardía. However, Adame Pardo's family has criticized the investigation into the case and said they may submit the remains to an independent laboratory for a second DNA analysis, Proceso reported.
"It is a region crossed by armed conflict; in that context, the possibility of temporary deprivation of liberty to persons unknown and from outside the community corresponds to a preventative attitude, of an exercise of protection and security, natural for any insurgent force," the statement said.
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).
The murder of award-winning Mexican journalist Javier Valdez on May 15 was the last straw for the reporters’ guild in that country, considered one of the most dangerous to practice journalism in the world.
Mexican journalist Salvador Adame Pardo, 45, has been missing for almost a month after a group of gunmen abducted him on May 18 in the city of Nueva Italia, in the municipality of Múgica, in Michoacán state.
May 26 marked 56 days of continuous protests against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, during which journalists face aggression from police, armed collectives and protesters alike.
Mexican journalist Martín Méndez Pineda, who sought political asylum in the U.S., voluntarily returned to Mexico after spending 100 days in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention centers, according to Reporters Without Borders (RSF for its acronym in French).
As many journalists have noted, the May 15 murder of Mexican journalist Javier Valdez was different from killings of other journalists in that country.