El Salvador / Americas

  
The wife of Philippines journalist Gerardo Ortega looks at his picture. (AFP/Noel Celis)

News of convictions in journalist murders sadly infrequent

We received an unusual email last week. Michaella Ortega wrote to tell us that Marlon Recamata, who confessed to shooting her father, Philippine journalist Gerardo Ortega, in 2011, had been convicted and sentenced to life for the crime.

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CPJ urges OAS not to weaken human rights system

Dear OAS Ministers of Foreign Affairs: Ahead of the assembly of the Organization of American States on Friday, the Committee to Protect Journalists urges you to oppose any attempts to debilitate the regional human rights system. The failure of member states to preserve the autonomy and independence of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and its special rapporteur on freedom of expression would make citizens throughout the hemisphere more vulnerable to human rights violations and represent a blow to democracy in the Americas.

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Attacks on the Press in 2012: El Salvador

Journalists felt the effect of widespread gang-related violence. The staff of the online news site El Faro faced intimidation after reporting on a criminal network involving businessmen and politicians, and after revealing secret negotiations between the government and gangs. Unidentified individuals followed and photographed El Faro’s journalists, Editor Carlos Dada said. Minister of Security David…

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Attacks on the Press: Divided, Journalists Are at Risk

No amount of security training can make up for a lack of professional solidarity. By Frank Smyth

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Mara Salvatrucha gangsters attend mass in prison. Members of the gang have been charged with the murder of a journalist. (AP/Luis Romero)

CPJ hails conviction in journalist murder in El Salvador

New York, June 7, 2012–The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes the conviction in the 2011 murder of Salvadoran cameraman Alfredo Antonio Hurtado Núñez, but calls on authorities to ensure that the other gunman charged for the crime is brought to justice.

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CPJ
Visitors look at an exhibit displaying the bloodstained clothes of the Jesuit priests murdered by the Salvadoran military in 1989. (AP/Luis Romero)

Solidarity, a key to security, eludes Salvadoran press

No other journalists are remembered quite like this. Visitors looking through the glass display at the Monsignor Romero Center & Martyrs Museum in San Salvador see the pajamas and other clothes that three Jesuit university priests were wearing when they were shot down by automatic rifle fire. A series of clear containers are filled with…

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CPJ
Gang members at a prison in Izalco shortly after a government-brokered truce. (Reuters/Ulises Rodriguez)

Why journalists need new ways to stay safe

After the Salvadoran online newsmagazine El Faro exposed a secret government deal with criminal gangs last month, its staff faced repercussions that illustrate the new and complicated risks facing journalists worldwide. El Faro’s report, which said the government provided more lenient treatment of imprisoned gangsters in exchange for the groups’ agreement to slow down their…

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Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes denies that his government has engaged in negotiations with gangs to lower the rate of homicides. (AP/Luis Romero)

El Salvador government pledges to protect El Faro

“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…

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Salvadoran news website threatened for its reporting

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…

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Latin America democracy violated by killings

Lately, we have come to expect violence against journalists in certain regions, such as the Middle East. But here at CPJ, 2011 has also been troubling for the number of journalists killed in an entirely different part of the world, the Americas. 

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