Attacks on the Press in 2012: El Salvador
Journalists felt the effect of widespread gang-related violence. The staff of the online news site El Faro faced intimidation after reporting on a criminal network involving businessmen and politicians, and after revealing secret negotiations between the government and gangs. Unidentified individuals followed and photographed El Faro’s journalists, Editor Carlos Dada said. Minister of Security David…
CPJ hails conviction in journalist murder in El Salvador
New York, June 7, 2012–The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes the conviction in the 2011 murder of Salvadoran cameraman Alfredo Antonio Hurtado Núñez, but calls on authorities to ensure that the other gunman charged for the crime is brought to justice.
Solidarity, a key to security, eludes Salvadoran press
No other journalists are remembered quite like this. Visitors looking through the glass display at the Monsignor Romero Center & Martyrs Museum in San Salvador see the pajamas and other clothes that three Jesuit university priests were wearing when they were shot down by automatic rifle fire. A series of clear containers are filled with…
Why journalists need new ways to stay safe
After the Salvadoran online newsmagazine El Faro exposed a secret government deal with criminal gangs last month, its staff faced repercussions that illustrate the new and complicated risks facing journalists worldwide. El Faro’s report, which said the government provided more lenient treatment of imprisoned gangsters in exchange for the groups’ agreement to slow down their…
El Salvador government pledges to protect El Faro
“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…
Salvadoran news website threatened for its reporting
New York, March 21, 2012–The editor of the Salvadoran news website El Faro says his staff members have been followed after the site reported on a criminal network involving politicians. In addition, he said a senior government official told the staff last week that gang members were angered by coverage of alleged ties between law enforcement…
Gunmen kill cameraman in El Salvador
New York, April 27, 2011–Veteran Salvadoran cameraman and photo editor Alfredo Antonio Hurtado was shot dead by two unidentified men on Monday night while on a bus to San Salvador, where he worked. The Committee to Protect Journalists called on authorities to thoroughly investigate the killing and bring the perpetrators to justice.
In El Salvador, 11 sentenced in filmmaker’s 2009 slaying
New York, March 10, 2011–The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes Wednesday’s sentencing of 11 defendants in the brutal 2009 slaying of Christian Poveda, left, a French photojournalist and filmmaker who had spent decades documenting gang violence in El Salvador. Twenty other suspects, accused of being accomplices, were acquitted.