Brazil / Americas

New York, May 28, 2009–The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes Wednesday’s conviction in the June 2003 murder of Brazilian journalist Nicanor Linhares but calls on the authorities to ensure that all those involved in the killing of the radio host are brought to justice. 

May 2009News from the Committee to Protect Journalists

New York, May 7, 2009–The Brazilian Supreme Federal Tribunal’s decision to strike down the 1967 Press Law, a measure that imposed harsh penalties for libel and slander, is a crucial step forward in the campaign to eliminate criminal defamation laws in the Americas, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. CPJ and other groups had…

In response to yesterday’s repeal of Brazil’s infamous 1967 Press Law by the Supreme Federal Tribunal, we issued the following statement…

Combating impunity has been a long and difficult process, full of obstacles and problems. At the national level it has not been easy, so much of our work is carried out using the supranational tools that we helped develop. They began taking shape through international intergovernmental declarations, in conclusions reached by international legislative and judicial…

CPJ’s Impunity Index spotlights countrieswhere journalists are slain and killers go free New York, March 23, 2009 — The already murderous conditions for the press in Sri Lanka and Pakistan deteriorated further in the past year, the Committee to Protect Journalists has found in its newly updated Impunity Index, a list of countries where journalists…

Powerful drug traffickers in Mexico, gangsters in Brazilian slums, paramilitaries in Colombia, and violent street gangs in El Salvador and Guatemala are terrorizing the press. Self-censorship is widespread. By Carlos Lauría

The kidnapping and torture of two journalists and a driver working undercover in Rio de Janeiro exposed the risks to Brazilian journalists, especially those reporting on organized crime in urban areas. Throughout the country, journalists covering mayoral and legislative campaigns faced legal and physical harassment.

SEPTEMBER 29, 2008 Extra HARASSED A group of armed men forcefully bought more than 30,000 copies of the September 29 issue of the Rio de Janeiro-based daily Extra in various parts of the city’s metropolitan area, said reports in the local press. According to a story on Extra’s Web site, the assailants were attempting to…

Anderson Leandro, QuemTV, October 23, 2008 Military police shot Leandro, a cameraman for the human rights television producing company QuemTV, in the face with a rubber bullet while he was covering a clash between police and protesters in the Fazendinha neighborhood of Curitiba in the Paraná state, 310 miles (500 kilometers) south of São Paulo. The journalist told…