Deadly violence against journalists in Latin America has continued to grow this year, with four countries from the region making the Committee to Protect Journalists' (CPJ) list of deadliest countries for journalists in 2015.
“The Mexican government doesn’t care about the journalists,” investigative journalist Anabel Hernández recently told the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas.
A number of Mexican journalists, newspapers and media outlets recently sent a formal declaration to the government of Veracruz denouncing alleged police violence against journalists while they were covering teacher protests on Nov. 21 and 22.
As the end of the year nears, two more journalists were killed in Brazil and Colombia in the past week.
Two people on a motorcycle fatally shot 30-year-old Brazilian blogger Ítalo Eduardo Diniz Barros on Nov. 13 in Governador Nunes Freire in Maranhão state. A friend with Diniz was also shot, but survived, according to G1.
Former mayor Vilmar Acosta arrived in Asunción - Paraguay's capital - Tuesday Nov. 17 after Brazil approved his extradition. He now will have to answer for the murder of journalist Pablo Medina, according to Reuters. The journalist’s assistant, Antonia Almada, was also killed in the attack targeting the reporter.
Flor Alba Núñez Vargas was only 25-years-old when she was fatally shot on the way to work on Sept. 10, 2015. Despite her youth, she simultaneously worked as a journalist at radio stations, television outlets and newspapers in Pitalito in the Huila department of southwest Colombia.
This has been the deadliest year for the Mexican press since President Enrique Peña Nieto took the presidency in 2012, according to freedom of expression advocacy organization Article 19.
The International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists (IDEI), on Nov. 2, was marked by events all over the world. At the United Nations headquarters in New York City, a panel discussion concluded that it is time for the international community to take more concrete actions to protect journalists and prosecute those who commit crimes against them.
Today, UNESCO hosts the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists (IDEI), aiming to prompt governments around the world to take stronger actions towards condemning and prosecuting those who commit crimes against journalists. Press advocates explain that the death of journalists is not only an industry-related problem but a threat to democratic society as a whole.
In the context of high levels of violence against journalists in Brazil, which already account for four murders this year, freedom of the press defenders came together around a project that seeks to curb impunity in these crimes. The Brazilian Press Association (ABI for its acronym in Portuguese) and the National Federation of Journalists (Fenaj for its acronym in Portuguese) launched "SOS Journalist", a platform for journalists to denounce aggressions and media abuses related to their professional practice, and to ask for and receive state protection.
A white plaque near Villa Ygatimí, about 26 miles from the Paraguayan border with Brazil, commemorates a journalist and an assistant killed while driving on a dirt highway there a year earlier.