In addition to the kidnapping of Honduran journalist Alfredo Villatoro, five other Honduran journalists reported death threats in San Pedro Sula during 2012 so far, reported the newspaper La Prensa.
Mexican journalist Humberto Padgett was among the winners of the prestigious 2012 Ortega y Gasset Journalism Prizes, organized by the Spanish newspaper El País, awarded Tuesday, May 8. Padgett, a reporter for the Emeequis magazine, won the prize for print journalism for his work "The Lost Boys" (Los Muchachos Perdidos), about organized crime in Mexico.
A journalist from the most influential Honduran radio station was kidnapped in the capital of Tegucigalpa, early in the morning of Wednesday, May 9, reported the newspaper La Prensa.
A Honduran journalist and gay activist was found dead on Monday, May 7, after having been reported missing for two days, according to the BBC. Journalist Erick Martínez Ávila was a spokesperson for the group Kulkulcán, which represents the rights of homosexuals in Honduras. He was also a Congressional candidate for the National Resistance Front party, which was created by followers of the ousted President Manuel Zelaya, reported the news agency EFE.
A new report from the Office of Journalist Human Rights of the National Journalists Association of Peru (ANP in Spanish) shows 49 attacks against journalists recorded in Peru during the first months of 2012. Most assaults were done by public officials (17), followed by civilians (16), non-identified attackers (11), news outlet owners/managers (4), and police/military (1). Among the assaulted journalists, 12 of them were women, according to the report.
After authorities identified the bodies of two tortured and killed Mexican photojournalists, the Attorney General of the Mexican state of Veracruz confirmed that the other two dismembered bodies found on Thursday, May 3, also belonged to employees of the local press, reported the Program of Freedom of Expression of the Center for Journalism and Public Ethics. Drug cartels are considered suspects in the killings, which highlight the dangers of reporting in parts of Mexico, the Houston Chronicle and the Globe and Main reported.
On Thursday, May 3, Reporters Without Borders marked World Press Freedom Day by condemning the "furious pace of physical attacks" on journalists, noting that in 2012, one journalist is killed every five days. The same day, news also came that two more Mexican journalists were found dead in the state of Veracruz. So far this year, Reporters Without Borders has recorded the killings of 21 journalists and six "netizens" and citizen journalists.
Two Mexican journalists were found dead in Veracruz on the morning of Thursday, May 3, only days after the killing of journalist Regina Martínez, reporter for Veracruz’s Proceso news-magazine, according to the Los Angeles Times. The finding of the two dead journalists coincides with World Press Freedom Day.
An Argentine journalist was brutally beaten to death by unknown men that entered his house in Neuquén, reported the radio station Cadena 3. The journalist was found dead on Sunday, April 29.
In a statement given to journalists, one of the guerrilla members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC in Spanish) confirmed that the FARC is holding French journalist Roméo Langlois as a war prisoner, reported the radio station Radio Caracol.
Alleged leaders of the cartel Zetas threatened a local newspaper and radio station in the small city of Izúcar de Matamoros, in southeast Mexico, reported the news site e-Consulta.com.
Mexico, Colombia, and Brazil -- three of the 12 countries worldwide with five or more unsolved cases of journalists killed for their work -- again find themselves on the Committee to Protect Journalists' (CPJ) annual Impunity Index.