Americas

"El Salvador is committed to guaranteeing the safety of El Faro and its staff so they can continue their investigative work," David Rivas, spokesman for President Mauricio Funes Cartagena, told CPJ in a recent phone conversation. The government's pledge came after groundbreaking reporting by the digital newspaper about secret negotiations in which local gangs, known as Maras, said they would limit murders in exchange for official concessions, like having imprisoned gang members transferred to lower-security prisons.

New York, April 2, 2012--The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes a recent decision by a Peruvian appeals court to overturn the criminal defamation conviction against a journalist who reported on local corruption.

New York, March 27, 2012--Mexican authorities must investigate attacks on a newspaper and TV station in the northeastern state of Tamaulipas and ensure the offices and its staff members are protected, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. Both attacks occurred within the space of one week.

New York, March 26, 2012--The decision by a Venezuelan court to forbid the press from reporting on issues of water contamination without using a government-approved report is a clear attempt by authorities to censor critical information, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

This month, the Mexican Senate approved an amendment to the country's constitution that would make attacks on journalists a federal crime in Mexico.

At Columbia University on Monday evening, CPJ board member Ahmed Rashid held forth to a full house in a conversation with Steve Coll about U.S. foreign policy in Afghanistan and Pakistan. If you're reading this blog, there's most likely no need to explain who Rashid is--or Coll, for that matter. The earliest reference I could find on cpj.org to Rashid dated back to 2000, about events in 1999, when he was the Islamabad bureau chief for the now-defunct Far Eastern Economic Review. His latest book, Pakistan on the Brink: The Future of America, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, is the most recent installment in a steady stream of trenchant, reliable, reality-based analysis of geopolitical affairs in Central and South Asia. If you need to be convinced, check out Foreign Policy's list of Top 100 Global Thinkers.

A video of the event, which was co-sponsored by CPJ, is now available here.

New York, March 21, 2012--The editor of the Salvadoran news website El Faro says his staff members have been followed after the site reported on a criminal network involving politicians. In addition, he said a senior government official told the staff last week that gang members were angered by coverage of alleged ties between law enforcement officials and local gangs, and might retaliate.

New York, March 16, 2012--A Colombian radio journalist was shot dead by an unidentified gunman on Thursday, according to news reports. 

New York, March 15, 2012--A Bolivian journalist who wrote about government corruption was found guilty of defamation by a criminal court in La Paz on Wednesday and sentenced to 30 months in prison. 

New York, March 13, 2012--The Committee to Protect Journalists hails the Mexican Senate's landmark approval today of a constitutional amendment that, if passed by a majority of states, would federalize anti-press crimes and transfer investigative powers to national authorities.