Americas

Miami, October 6, 2023—The Committee to Protect Journalists is concerned about the criminal defamation suit filed by the owner of the rum company Rhum Barbancourt against the independent news website AyiboPost and its editor-in-chief, Widlore Mérancourt, and calls on Haitian authorities to repeal the country’s punitive criminal defamation laws, the organization said Friday. On September…

Mexico City, October 6, 2023—Mexican authorities must credibly and transparently investigate the killing of journalist Jesús Gutiérrez Vergara who was shot dead in a city near the U.S. border, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Friday. Gutiérrez, the founder and editor of Notiface, a Facebook-based news website, was talking with four off-duty policemen in the…

The FBI used a search warrant to raid the home of freelance journalist Tim Burke on May 8, 2023, in Tampa, Fla., seizing most of his electronic devices, after Burke obtained outtakes of a 2022 Fox News interview by Tucker Carlson with the rapper Ye, formerly known as Kanye West. The Committee to Protect Journalists signed on…

New York, October 2, 2023—The Committee to Protect Journalists has called for police to investigate the motive for the fatal shooting of freelance journalist Josh Kruger near his Philadelphia home on Monday. “We are deeply disturbed by the killing of freelance journalist Josh Kruger and extend our condolences to his colleagues and loved ones,” said…

São Paulo, September 21, 2023–The Committee to Protect Journalists called on Chilean authorities to investigate and hold accountable those who shot Javier Barría, a camera operator with privately owned news outlet MegaMedia, while he covered a protest on the anniversary of the country’s 1973 military coup. On September 11, Barría was working in the Villa…

Cyberattackers used services of technology companies based in the U.S. and U.K. to target media sites from Somalia, Kosovo, and Turkmenistan, Qurium, a nonprofit hosting the sites, said Tuesday. Earlier this month, CPJ reported on how cyberattackers used a Nebraska company, RayoByte, in attempts to knock those same media sites offline, as well as at…

Mexico City, September 18, 2023—The Committee to Protect Journalists on Monday welcomed the 27-and-a-half-year sentence issued for the 2020 murder of Mexican reporter Israel Vázquez Rangel and urged authorities to redouble their efforts to protect journalists and prosecute their attackers. On Thursday, September 14, a federal judge in the central Mexican state of Guanajuato sentenced…

Editor’s note: The Venezuela Press Workers Union posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, on September 21, that government authorities placed journalist Luis Alejandro Acosta on probation with a 15-day reporting schedule, a ban on publishing information about his arrest, and the obligation to request permission to leave the country. Bogotá, September 14, 2023—Venezuelan authorities must immediately…

Bogotá, September 11, 2023—Colombian authorities must thoroughly investigate a death threat against journalist Estefanía Colmenares, ensure her safety, and bring those responsible to justice, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Monday. On September 6, Colmenares, editor of the independent La Opinión newspaper in the northern city of Cúcuta, received a threat from an unidentified number…

In February 2023, Dutch journalist Bram Ebus, Colombian videographer Andrés Cardona, and Colombian photographer Alex Rufino, were threatened by the military police of Japurá in the Brazilian state of Amazonas while reporting on illegal mining in the Amazon region as part of Amazon Underworld, an investigative project on crime and corruption in the region.      …