Brazil / Americas

New York, January 31, 2013–Appellate courts in Brazil should overturn a decision ordering journalist Lúcio Flavio Pinto to pay more than $200,000 in damages in connection with a libel suit, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. The journalist, who was initially found liable in late 2012, lost an appeal in a ruling publicized on…

Two unidentified men shot Renato Machado Gonçalves as he was returning home with his family at night on January 8, 2013, in the city of São João da Barra, in northern Rio de Janeiro state, according to news reports. Machado’s six-year-old niece was also injured in the attack, the reports said. Machado died later at…

New York, December 18, 2012–Brazilian authorities must immediately provide protection to journalist Mauri König, who went into hiding on Monday after receiving death threats related to his reports on police corruption, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

Syrian violence contributed to a sharp rise in the number of journalists killed for their work in 2012, as did a series of murders in Somalia. The dead include a record proportion of journalists who worked online. A CPJ special report

Almost half of the 67 journalists killed worldwide in 2012 were targeted and murdered for their work, research by the Committee to Protect Journalists shows. The vast majority covered politics. Many also reported on war, human rights, and crime. In almost half of these cases, political groups are the suspected source of fire. There has…

There are many complex reasons why Brazil has become a dangerous place to practice journalism. I will cite two possible explanations for the increase in deaths of journalists in the country, where seven journalists have been confirmed killed for the work over the past two years. First, the press is producing more investigative reports on…

The tortured and decapitated body of 39-year-old María Elizabeth Macías Castro was found on a Saturday evening in September 2011. It had been dumped by the side of a road in Nuevo Laredo, a Mexican border town ravaged by the war on drugs. Macías, a freelance journalist, wrote about organized crime on social media under…

The battle for a free press sometimes feels like a war between indignation and intimidation. Journalists learn of abuses of power, crime, or corruption, and–indignant–they speak out. In response, the perpetrators of those abuses–be they government officials or criminals–try to intimidate the journalists into silence with threats, lawsuits, jail, or even murder. Last night, the…