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El Salvador


The wife of Philippines journalist Gerardo Ortega looks at his picture. (AFP/Noel Celis)

We received an unusual email last week. Michaella Ortega wrote to tell us that Marlon Recamata, who confessed to shooting her father, Philippine journalist Gerardo Ortega, in 2011, had been convicted and sentenced to life for the crime.

Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes denies that his government has engaged in negotiations with gangs to lower the rate of homicides. (AP/Luis Romero)

"El Salvador is committed to guaranteeing the safety of El Faro and its staff so they can continue their investigative work," David Rivas, spokesman for President Mauricio Funes Cartagena, told CPJ in a recent phone conversation. The government's pledge came after groundbreaking reporting by the digital newspaper about secret negotiations in which local gangs, known as Maras, said they would limit murders in exchange for official concessions, like having imprisoned gang members transferred to lower-security prisons.

Lately, we have come to expect violence against journalists in certain regions, such as the Middle East. But here at CPJ, 2011 has also been troubling for the number of journalists killed in an entirely different part of the world, the Americas. 

On June 7, we wrote to Mexican President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa about a series of attacks perpetrated against local journalists by federal law enforcement since the beginning of the year. The office of the Mexican president responded on June 16. 

In a letter to CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon, Calderón informed us that our letter was submitted to the attorney general’s office and the Mexican Ministry of Interior so the issue can be addressed as “soon as possible.”

Six men—five members of a Salvadoran street gang and a police agent—face murder charges in the death of French filmmaker Christian Gregorio Poveda Ruiz, El Salvador’s attorney general’s office said. Poveda, whose new documentary on a violent Salvadoran gang was scheduled for wide release at the end of this month, was gunned down on September 2 just north of the capital, San Salvador, according to local and international new reports.
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