Dominican Republic

New York, January 31, 2012--The six-month jail sentence of Dominican journalist Johnny Alberto Salazar, who was convicted of defaming a local lawyer on January 18, should be revoked on appeal, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

Journalists die at high rates while covering protests in the Arab world and elsewhere. Photographers and freelancers appear vulnerable. Pakistan is again the deadliest nation. A CPJ special report

New York, August 3, 2011--The body of José Agustín Silvestre, a critical Dominican journalist who ran a magazine and hosted a television program, was found Tuesday morning shortly after he was seized by gunmen in the southeastern city of La Romana, according to local press reports. 

New York, February 2, 2011--Dominican police wounded journalist Francisco Frías Morel on Friday as he was covering a funeral procession for a youth killed in a police shooting in the northeastern city of Nagua, according to news reports and CPJ interviews. The Committee to Protect Journalists called on local authorities to conduct a thorough investigation and to hold those responsible to account. 

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC:

New York, August 8, 2008—Unidentified individuals shot and killed Dominican journalist Normando García Thursday evening in the city of Santiago, 102 miles (163 kilometers) north of the capital, Santo Domingo. The Committee to Protect Journalists is investigating whether García’s murder is linked to his journalistic work.

At around 6:40 p.m., García, a cameraman for the daily news program “Detrás de la Noticia” (Behind the News) and producer of the music program “Pachanga Mix” on television station Teleunión, was dropping his car at a car wash when multiple gunshots were fired from a moving car, according to local news reports.

November 24, 2007 
Posted January 10, 2008

Noel Encarnación, Freelance, Despierta Ocoa
ATTACKED, THREATENED

Police attacked and threatened Encarnación, a freelance photographer and reporter for the radio news show "Despierta Ocoa" (Wake up Ocoa) on local state-owned radio Maniel FM, after he photographed victims of Hurricane Noel in the province of San José de Ocoa in central Dominican Republic, the reporter told CPJ.  

JUNE 11, 2007
Posted June 26, 2007

Erica Guzmán, Hoy and Radio Popular
THREATENED

Guzmán, correspondent in the eastern city of Samaná for the national daily Hoy and the national station Radio Popular, told CPJ that her daughter received two anonymous calls threatening the journalist and her family with death after she reported on a local corruption scandal.

New York, May 3, 2007—The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes Wednesday’s decision by a Dominican court to sentence a gang leader to 30 years in prison for the 2004 murder of local journalist Juan Emilio Andújar Matos.

A court in Azua also ordered Vladimir Pujols, leader of the drug trafficking gang “Los Sayayines,” to pay 1,300,000 pesos (US$40,945) to radio reporter Jorge Luis Sención, who witnessed the attack and was shot during a second ambush. Pujols’ lawyers told local reporters that he would appeal his conviction, according to Dominican press reports.