Panama

Spanish journalist Paco Gomez Nadal was arrested in Panama City in one of the protests staged around the country, mainly by Indian groups, against the reform of the mining law, the government said, according to the Latin American Herald Tribune. “The National Police arrested foreigner Francisco Gomez Nadal at a time when he was instigating and organizing a group of citizens who were preparing to...

Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has urged the National Assembly of Panama to reject a draft law under which anyone insulting the president or an elected official could be sentenced to between two and four years in prison, as it would represent major step backwards for freedom of expression in Panama. The National Assembly is due to resume examining it Tuesday...

Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has expressed outrage at Panama's decision to offer political asylum to María del Pilar Hurtado, a former head of Colombia’s leading intelligence agency, the Administrative Department of Security (DAS). Hurtado is due to go to the Panamanian consulate in Bogotá today to receive documents allowing her to travel to Panama. Panama’s...

A Panamanian court of appeals has convicted two TV journalists of criminal defamation and banned them from professional work for one year, news reports said. While President Ricardo Martinelli said he would pardon the journalists, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said that lawmakers should repeal all criminal penalties for defamation. The case stems from a 2005 story...

A Panama City court has banned TVN Canal 2 news editor Sabrina Bacal and Justino González, a former TVN Canal 2 reporter who is now a KW Continente commentator, from working as journalists for one year as well as fining them $6,000, according to Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). Issued on appeal on September 27 and announced on October 4, the sentences replaced the...

Retired Panama journalist Carlos Núñez was released on July 14 after 19 days in detention, according to delayed reports received by Paris-based Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). Núñez was arrested on June 26 after being convicted in absentia as a result of a libel suit brought against him 10 years ago. At the time of his arrest, he was completely unaware he had been convicted over an article he...

A 70-year-old Panamanian journalist was arrested and jailed Saturday on a 2008 defamation conviction, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has said. The charges against Carlos Núñez López, stemmed from a 2005 story in the now-defunct weekly newspaper La Crónica about environmental damage in the province of Bocas del Toro, his lawyer, Luis Ferreyra, told CPJ. A landowner alleged his...

The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) has criticised a "highly surprising" court decision against Panamanian newspaper La Prensa that ordered payment of US$300,000 in damages to a former public prosecutor for libel after the newspaper published official reports on irregularities that took place under her watch. On April 30, Second Civil Circuit Court Judge Miriam Cheng de Aguilar ordered La...

A Panama City court has sentenced leading Panamanian journalist Jean Marcel Chéry to two years in prison on trespassing charges stemming from a years-long series of complaints filed by a Supreme Court justice, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. It has called on Justice Winston Spadafora to end his politically motivated harassment. Judge Ricardo Mazza Moreno of the Second...

A Panamanian judge has barred sports columnist Bienvenido Brown from leaving the country and ordered him to stand trial on criminal defamation charges filed in 2005. Eleventh Criminal Court Judge Josefina Sclopis issued the ruling on Friday against Brown, a columnist with the daily La Estrella de Panamá, the newspaper reported. The judge's decision stemmed from a criminal defamation suit against...