Americas

From his cell in the maximum security Agüica Prison in western Matanzas province, jailed Cuban journalist Héctor Maseda Gutiérrez has written us a letter to accept CPJ’s International Press Freedom Award. In his letter, Maseda Gutiérrez speaks out “for all those who suffer the horror that characterizes despotic and oligarchic government models.” He will be honored on Tuesday. The…

Various news outlets had coverage over the weekend of press freedom in Russian in light of last week’s brutal assault on Mikhail Beketov, a Moscow newspaper editor who still remains comatose in a local hospital. The Chicago Tribune as well as the UK-based newspapers The Guardian and The Sunday Herald are running stories about the dangers…

New York, November 21, 2008–A decision to order the arrest of renowned Colombian journalist Alejandro Santos Rubino is an act of censorship, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. A Bogotá judge ordered the arrest of Santos, the director of the national weekly newsmagazine Semana, for failing to follow the court’s instructions in a defamation…

CPJ’s 2008 International Press Freedom awardees, who were officially announced yesterday at a press conference in Washington, are making news today–including editor Andrew Mwenda, who was concurrently issued an arrest warrant in his home country of Uganda.

CPJ’s Monica Campbell is interviewed today on NPR’s “People and Places” about the recent murder of crime reporter Armando Rodriguez and the worsening situation for Mexican journalists. She is joined by journalist Arturo Chacon.Visit NPR.org to listen to the report.

New York, November 20, 2008–The Committee to Protect Journalists called on Mexican authorities today to protect journalists in the border town of Ciudad Juárez after one journalist was forced to flee and another was murdered. 

Washington, November 20, 2008–On the day Ugandan editor Andrew Mwenda was introduced here as a recipient of a CPJ International Press Freedom Award, police back home summoned the journalist for questioning over his magazine’s hard-hitting political coverage.

Since 2001, CPJ has documented the cases of 340 journalists forced into exile after their reporting exposed them to harassment, violence, or imprisonment. They face many difficulties in their new homes, from language and cultural adjustments to emotional and economic hardships. Here are five snapshots of journalists in exile.

Making headlines today across the English and Spanish-language press is the brutal murder of Mexican crime reporter Armando Rodríguez.

Nelson Carvajal Carvajal, Radio Sur, August 26, 2008 Original case: April 14, 1998 Colombia’s attorney general ordered the arrest of Carlos Augusto Rojas Ortiz, president of the local Assembly in Huila province, for masterminding Carvajal’s murder in 1998, according to local news reports.