Americas

New York, April 29, 2011--The Committee to Protect Journalists called on Honduran authorities today to offer full protection to Radio Uno Director Arnulfo Aguilar after a group of gunman attempted to enter his home in the northwestern city of San Pedro Sula. The police delayed an hour in responding to Aguilar's distress call, according to press reports.

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. 

New York, April 26, 2011--The Community to Protect Journalists condemned Thursday's arson attack on Haitian community radio station Tèt Ansanm Karis and called on local authorities to bring the perpetrators to justice. The blaze destroyed the station's offices and all equipment and left the northeastern city of Carice without a local radio station.

New York, April 22, 2011--David Niño de Guzmán, news director for the La Paz-based Agencia de Noticias Fides, was found dead on Thursday, the apparent victim of an explosive device, after being reported missing two days earlier. The Committee to Protect Journalists called on authorities today to thoroughly investigate the death.

New York, April 20, 2011--The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by a string of recent arrests of journalists from the Havana-based news outlet Centro de Información Hablemos Press, preventing them from reporting on the Communist Party Congress held in Havana this week. CPJ called on the Cuban government to cease its persistent harassment of independent journalists and allow them to report freely.

The State Department released its annual Country Reports on Human Rights this week. In preparing this year's reports, Foggy Bottom had to comply for the first time with the Daniel Pearl Freedom of the Press Act. Signed into law in May 2010, the Pearl Act requires descriptions, identifications, and assessments of press freedom conditions, including whether "severe violations" have occurred and "whether government authorities" have been complicit in press freedom violations. As I note in a blog in TheHill.com, though, the State Department's first attempt falls short, providing too little context and assessment.

As the trial of suspects
charged with murdering Oakland,
Calif., reporter and editor Chauncey Bailey continued,
a reporter who has written dozens of articles about the case was himself threatened
as he investigated allegations
of real estate fraud by a business tied to the suspects on trial.

New York, April 11, 2011--Brazilian authorities must thoroughly investigate the slaying of radio and television journalist Luciano Leitão Pedrosa, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. Pedrosa, known for his critical coverage of local authorities and criminal groups, was shot Saturday night at a restaurant in Vitória de Santo Antão in northeastern Pernambuco state, according to press reports.

"We have a big story coming out tomorrow," Adela Navarro Bello, the co-editor of the muckraking Tijuana weekly Zeta, said when I visited the newspaper last Thursday. "There's a breakthrough in the investigation into the murder of Ortiz Franco."