Americas

Mexico is not at war. It is a democracy. And yet it is one of the world's most dangerous countries for the press. Twenty-one journalists have been killed in Mexico since 2000, seven of them in direct reprisal for their work. Since 2005, seven others have gone missing. Mexico ranks 10th on CPJ's impunity index, along with such war-ravaged countries as Iraq, Somalia, and Sierra Leone. The impact of

The Washington Post Co is launching a new unit that will develop and manage a family of Web-based magazines, according to a Reuters report. The Slate Group plans to get into other new media ventures that it develops on its own or through acquisitions, the company said in a statement. "The rationale is that you can build an audience beyond Slate's existing audience in certain vertical or...

The abduction and torture of two Brazilian journalists investigating paramilitaries in Rio de Janerio's sprawling slums have brought to the fore the increasing threats to lives of journalists in the city's favelas (shanties). A reporter, a photographer and their driver working undercover for the paper in Batan, a shantytown located in the western outskirts of the city, were abducted from a local...

The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) wants to take a close look at a recent ruling by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights that allows criminal proceedings against journalists in libel cases, a move it claims "goes against major progress made in recent years in favor of free speech and press freedom." The Court decision, handed down on May 26, was in favour of (. . .) Argentine...

Unidentified gunmen killed Pierre Fould Gerges, vice president of the Caracas daily Reporte Diario de la Economía, on Monday following dozens of death threats against the paper’s senior administrative staff over the last year. The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said Tuesday that Venezuelan authorities must conduct a thorough investigation and determine whether Gerges’...

When community radio station Sarare Estéreo's journalists arrived for work at dawn on May 29 in Saravena, Aracua department, they found a gigantic graffiti message on the station door, apparently from the Colombian paramilitary group, Autodefensa Unidas de Colombia (AUC), according to the Internaitonal Federation of Journalists (IFJ). This is only the most recent of a series of threatening...

Two recent judicial decisions in Paraguay and the Dominican Republic have recognised access to public information as a fundamental human right. "The decisions of the courts in Paraguay and Dominican Republic represent clear progress in the protection and fulfillment of the right to freedom of information, and ARTICLE 19 warmly welcomes these rulings. They should be used to inspire others in Latin...

In what PEN has called a "shocking and very discouraging turn of events," writer and independent journalist Normando Hernández González has been removed from a hospital where he was receiving essential medical treatment and returned to Kilo 7 Prison in Camagüey, Cuba, where he is reportedly now being held in complete isolation in life-threatening conditions. According to PEN's information, on May...

After being held for 19 days on questionable drug-trafficking charges in Puentecilla prison in the central state of Guanajuato, El Tiempo publisher Jesús Lemus Barajas was transferred Tuesday to a high-security federal prison in Puente Grande, in the neighbouring state of Jalisco, Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has reported. The authorities said he had to be moved because he was a “dangerous...

A journalist was beaten up and subjected to electrical shocks by officials of the Carabobo State Police in Venezuela after he was accused of damaging some furniture in the reception area of El Periódico newspaper and carrying a gun without a permit, according to the Instituto Prensa y Sociedad (IPYS). On May 5, Fabián Chacón, legal representative of journalist Leocenis García, stated that his...