Cases in other countries

ARGENTINA

BRAZIL

ECUADOR

GUATEMALA

HAITI

HONDURAS

 

ARGENTINA

Past Cases:

Emblematic (1)

ARGENTINA - Alicia Partnoy (Bellarmine college of liberal arts)Alicia Partnoy (born 1955, Bahía Blanca, Argentina), is a poet, academic, translator and human rights activist, who was among 30,000 Argentineans who were ‘disappeared' after the military coup in 1976. She was secretly imprisoned for two and a half years from 1977 to 1979, during which time she was tortured. Following her release, Partnoy claimed asylum in the USA, where she still lives and works. She has been very active in testifying before international human rights organisations against those involved in the military dictatorship. Click here for more information.

 

BRAZIL

 Past Cases:

Killed (2004-2008) (4)

Gonzalves (72) was shot dead by an unidentified motorcyclist while driving his car on 31 March 2005. The journalist, who was reportedly a controversial local figure, had formerly served many years on the city council. The motive for the murder was not clear but robbery was ruled out since nothing of value was taken at the time of the attack.

Monassa died on 24 July 2006 in Guapirimim, Rio de Janeiro state, reportedly after being beaten by a councilman whom the journalist had criticised in recent articles. Monassa, also a member of the local opposition, reportedly argued with a close relative of the councillor's, before the politician himself, a martial arts black belt, intervened and beat the journalist until he collapsed. It is not known if judicial action was taken.

Paulino da Silva was shot at while driving his car in Guarujá, São Paulo state, on the morning of 20 July 2006. His vehicle reportedly crashed into a wall and burst into flames, killing the journalist.

Brazil: Luiz Carlos Barbon FilhoBarbon (37) was shot dead by two masked men on a motorbike as he sat with friends on a bar terrace in Porto Ferreira, São Paulo state. He was shot twice at close range, wounding his leg and abdomen, and later died in hospital. It is thought that his murder was related to his reporting on political corruption. According to his widow, Barbon had been receiving frequent death threats by telephone and mail prior to his death.

The journalist had investigated numerous cases of corruption and crime involving state officials, including alleged police involvement in gangs that stole freight from trucks on the highway. In 2003 he had uncovered a child sex abuse ring, which led to the arrest and sentencing of ten people, including politicians and businessmen. Despite being given long jail sentences, most have since been freed. After his death, there were press reports that Barbon had attempted to blackmail local politicians, demanding money in return for not publishing insulting articles about them. However there was apparently no evidence to support these claims.

A month after his death, the newspaper Folha de São Paulo reported that members of the local military police were involved in Barbon's murder, an allegation that was reportedly denied by a regional military police commander. The Department for General Enquiries was put in charge of the investigation.

In November 2008, an international free expression group reported that Cátia Rosa Camargo, Barbon's widow, and her two children were being threatened and harassed by people thought to be linked to her husband's killers. According to Camargo, she had been followed by men she recognised as off-duty policemen and cars and motorbikes were regularly driving past her house even though it is located in an area that is normally very quiet. Camargo also reported that she had almost been run over in May 2008 by a woman she recognised as the wife of a police officer, and that shots had been fired outside her lawyer's office in October 2008. She says she had not reported these incidents to the police for fear of retribution. The police had previously advised Camargo and her family to leave their home for their own safety.

A few days after this report, Camargo was dismissed from her job as a secretary at a radio station. She believes that she lost her job because of her campaign for an investigation into her husband's killing.

 

ECUADOR

Current Cases:

Imprisoned: Main Case (1)

ECUADOR - Milton Chacaguasay Flores (www.i-times.com)Date of arrest: 9 July 2009. Sentence: 4 months. Expires:  8 November 2009 Charge: criminal libel.

Details of trial: On 15 November 2008, Chacaguasay was sentenced to 10 months' imprisonment for allegedly libeling a judge. Arrested and jailed on 30 November 2008, he was released on parole in mid May 2009, having served half of his sentence. However, on 9 July 2009 - less than two months after his release - Chacaguasay was re-imprisoned following a new verdict for the same offence. He was sentenced to one month in prison in April but following an appeal the sentence was increased to four months.

Chacaguasay reportedly did not have the opportunity to defend himself and has denounced serious violations of due process. He says he fears for his life in prison and has requested protection from the authorities. The journalist is reportedly facing a number of other law suits, including one seeking damages of US$400,000 on the same charges.

Past Cases:

Killed (2004-2008) (1)

ECUADOR Carlos Navarrete (ElUniverso.com)Navarrete was found dead in his home on the night of 24 February 2008. Reports indicated he had been stabbed seven times, had his hands tied and that he had been tortured. Robbery was initially ruled out as a motive as nothing was missing from the editor's home. However, in April 2008 the national prosecutors reported that they were again working on the assumption that Navarrete had been killed for refusing to give intruders the combination to his safe. On 21 March 2008, a warrant was issued for the arrest of a suspect who had yet to be located. It is not clear whether Navarrete's death was related to his work as a journalist.

 

GUATEMALA

Past Cases:

Killed (2004-2008) (2)

GUATEMALA - Hugo ARCE elperiodico.com.gtArce was found dead in a hotel room in Guatemala City on 23 January 2008. He had reportedly been shot through the heart. The official verdict was suicide, which Arce's family contested. In November 2008, Arce's lawyer and family accused the special prosecutor in charge of the investigation of distorting evidence in order to present Arce's death as suicide, and requested that the prosecutor be replaced. Arce is said to have written various articles against President Álvaro Colom and his wife in the run-up to the 2007 general elections, and some reports imply that the president had asked the editor of La Hora newspaper to stop publishing Arce's opinion pieces. The president's wife had reportedly ?led criminal defamation charges against Arce in December 2007.

GUATEMALA - Jorge MÉRIDA PÉREZMérida (40) was shot dead in his home in Coatepeque on 10 May 2008, reportedly while he was writing an article on his computer. He was shot four times in the head. The editor's 14-year-old son was in the house at the time but was not injured. Mérida had recently reported on local drug trafficking and government corruption and had received multiple threats in the weeks prior to his death, one of them after covering a massive cocaine seizure by police. National authorities in charge of the investigation were reportedly focusing on Mérida's journalism as the main motive behind his killing.

 

Emblematic (1)

GUATEMALA - Myrna MACKMyrna Mack (born 24 October 1949, Barrio San Nicolás, Retalhuleu department, Guatemala; died 11 September 1990, Guatemala City) was an anthropologist who was assassinated by Guatemalan state intelligence agents in retribution for her groundbreaking research on the destruction of rural indigenous communities. Her sister, Helen Mack, has fought tirelessly to bring to justice those involved in her murder. On the evening of 11 September 1990, Myrna Mack was stabbed 27 times by two men as she left her office. Click here for more information.

  

 

HAITI

Past Cases:

Killed (2004-2008) (1)

HAITI - Jacques ROCHERoche was abducted on 10 July 2005 and found dead on a Port-au-Prince street four days later. He had reportedly been tortured and shot by his kidnappers, who had demanded a ransom of US$250,000. On 30 August 2007, two members of the local ‘Solino' gang, were sentenced to life imprisonment for Roche's kidnapping and murder. They said that they had killed Roche when they did not receive the full ransom. Other gang members were detained later in 2007 in connection with the death. It is not clear whether Roche's death was related to his work as a journalist.

 

 HONDURAS

Past Cases:  

Killed: (2)

Rivera was reportedly kidnapped by armed men belonging to an organized crime group in Concepción, Santa Bárbara, on 14 March 2009. The authorities were unable to locate his abductors. Reports vary as to whether the criminals asked his family to ask for a ransom. Rivera's body was found on 8 July, almost four months after his abduction, in a ditch in the Buena area of Vista Copán department, western Honduras. The motive for his kidnapping and death is unknown.

López (27) was shot dead in the Honduran capital, Tegucigalpa, on 18 April 2009. He was in a vehicle with his cousin and a friend when some strangers pretended to ask for a cigarette and then opened fire. The journalist was killed instantly; his cousin was seriously injured and taken to hospital. At the time Reporters Without Borders stated that there was no indication that López's murder was related to his journalism. However, given the fact that López worked for President Manuel Zelaya, who was deposed in a military coup in June, and the climate of mounting violence against journalists in the country at the time, it seems possible that his death was in fact linked to his work.

 

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