Americas

2014

  

Peru Interior minister under investigation in 1988 journalist murder

Some of Peru’s top government officials, including President Ollanta Humala, are former army officers who spent the 1980s fighting Maoist Shining Path guerrillas. Both sides committed massive human rights abuses, but now one particularly brutal episode is coming back to haunt the Humala administration.

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TSA policy change could compound security concerns for journalists in transit

On Sunday, the U.S. Transportation Security Administration announced a new policy requiring that travelers to the United States turn on their devices at the request of airport security personnel. Devices that cannot be powered on will be barred from the aircraft, and passengers in possession of such devices may also be subjected to additional screening.…

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Pressured by government, Ecuadoran cartoonist is forced to adjust

Called to testify before a government media oversight commission, editorial cartoonist Xavier Bonilla–known by his penname Bonil–showed up with a pair of four-foot-long mock pencils. But rather than having a small eraser on the tip, one of Bonil’s giant pencils was nearly all eraser.

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Ecuador newspaper shutters its presses, citing government pressure

Blaming government harassment and a related advertising slowdown, the daily newspaper Hoy ceased its Quito-based print edition Monday, and said it would transform into an online-only newspaper.

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Rafael Correa is awarded an honorary doctorate by Santiago University in Chile on May 14, 2014. Four newspapers face fines for not covering the event sufficiently. (Reuters/Ivan Alvarado)

Ecuador’s year-old media law stifles in-depth reporting

Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa generated little actual news during a two-day trip to Chile last month. So Ecuador’s four main newspapers did the obvious: They published short wire service dispatches about his visit.

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In the wake of US pullout, Afghan journalists need protection

In the aftermath of this week’s foreign policy speech by President Barack Obama and discussions on the imminent pullout of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, we need to think once again of the implications this retreat will have for the thousands of Afghans who for more than a decade have worked not only with the military,…

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Blogger Yoani Sanchez visits CPJ's New York offices in 2013. (CPJ/Nicole Schilit)

Cuban blogger Yoani Sánchez launches independent news site

Late last October, as I accompanied Cuban blogger Yoani Sánchez in a cab ride from LaGuardia Airport to her hotel in Manhattan, we talked nonstop about what had changed in Cuba during 2013 and about her plans for 2014. Two things she told me then were particularly striking. 

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CPJ
Dilma Rousseff and Brazilian ministers meet with Carlos Lauría and other representatives of CPJ. (Roberto Stuckert Filho/PR)

Rousseff to CPJ: ‘Brazil committed to fighting impunity’

“The federal government is fully committed to continue fighting against impunity in cases of killed journalists,” Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff told a CPJ delegation during a meeting on Tuesday in Brasilia, the country’s political capital. Accepting that deadly violence against the media is a detriment to freedom of the press, Rousseff said her administration will…

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President Obama speaks during the White House Correspondents' Association dinner in Washington on May 3. (AP/Jacquelyn Martin)

Obama transparency record remains unimpressive

Nearly seven months ago, CPJ published its first in-depth report on press freedom in the United States, concluding that the Obama administration’s aggressive prosecution of leakers of classified information, broad surveillance programs, and moves to stem the routine disclosure of information to the press meant that the president had fallen far short of his campaign…

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Slideshow: Covering protests in Venezuela

Coverage of street demonstrations is an exceptionally dangerous assignment, with journalists subject to assaults, obstruction, detention, raids, threats, censorship orders, and confiscation or destruction of equipment. This report is one in a series of three by Getty photographers who documented for CPJ their recent experiences covering protests and shared their photographs.

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2014