CHILE
MAY 4, 2005 Posted: May 17, 2005 Paola Briceño Verdina, Radio Bío-Bío HARASSED, ATTACKED Radio reporter Briceño Verdina was beaten and detained by national police agents after covering a student protest in Santiago. Local press reports said a large number of university students gathered in Santiago to protest a bill that would give private banks…
PERU
MAY 4, 2005 Updated December 12, 2005 Sally Bowen, freelance LEGAL ACTION, HARASSED In May 2005, Judge Alfredo Catacora Acevedo found British freelance journalist Sally Bowen guilty of criminal defamation and ordered her and her publisher to pay $10,000 Peruvian soles (US$3,000) to businessman Fernando Zevallos. Catacora also sentenced Bowen to one year of probation…
BRAZIL
APRIL 28, 2005 Posted: June 15, 2005 Jorge Kajuru, SBT LEGAL ACTION Brazilian sports commentator Jorge Kajuru was sentenced to 18 months of overnight detention after being convicted on a criminal defamation charge. He remains free while his case is under appeal before the Superior Court of Justice, Brazil’s second highest court.
Photographer dies while covering protests
New York, April 21, 2005 Photographer Julio Augusto García Romero died Tuesday evening, after inhaling tear gas while covering a demonstration in downtown Quito, Ecuador’s capital. The demonstration, organized to protest the now-ousted President Lucio Gutiérrez, was moving toward the Palacio de Carondelet, the seat of the executive branch, when police fired water cannons…
Federal investigators take over probe
New York, April 18, 2005—The Committee to Protect Journalists mourns the loss of Mexican crime reporter Dolores Guadalupe García Escamilla, who died Saturday from injuries she suffered in an April 5 shooting in front of her radio station in the border city of Nuevo Laredo. García Escamilla had been hospitalized in critical condition since she…