Julio César Da Rosa

URUGUAY IS HOME TO ONE OF THE MOST VIBRANT MEDIA SCENES in the Americas, but public officials frequently pursue criminal defamation cases against journalists, while state advertising is distributed to reward media that provide favorable coverage of the government.

Uruguayan journalists say that criminal defamation cases have become commonplace in the last decade. Under Article 26 of Law 16,099, the Uruguayan Press Law, "crimes of defamation and slander committed through the media shall be punished with prison terms within the limits provided for each crime in the Criminal Code." Committing the offense through the media is termed an "aggravating circumstance" under this article.

New York, January 4, 2001 --- Of the 24 journalists killed for their work in 2000, according to CPJ research, at least 16 were murdered, most of those in countries where assassins have learned they can kill journalists with impunity.

This figure is down from 1999, when CPJ found that 34 journalists were killed for their work, 10 of them in war-torn Sierra Leone.

In announcing the organization's annual accounting of journalists who lost their lives because of their work, CPJ executive director Ann Cooper noted that while most of the deaths occurred in countries experiencing war or civil strife, "The majority did not die in crossfire. They were very deliberately targeted for elimination because of their reporting." Others whose deaths were documented by CPJ appear to have been singled out while covering demonstrations, or were caught in military actions or ambushes while on assignment.

New York, March 8, 2000 --- CPJ is deeply saddened by the February 24 murder of Uruguayan journalist Julio César Da Rosa, owner and editor of the independent station Radio del Centro, by former local official Nery Colombo, who shot the journalist and then killed himself.

Radio del Centro broadcasts from Baltasar Brum, an isolated village in the northern department of Artigas. Colombo served as secretary of the Baltasar Brum administrative board until May 1999. He was running for re-election at the time of the murder.