Another journalist has been killed in Mexico, this time in the central state of Morelos. Police on Sunday found the body of Rene Orta Salgado in the trunk of his car in a suburb of Cuernavaca, the capital of Morelos, located 90 kilometers (55 miles) from Mexico City, Spanish news agency EFE reported today. His face was covered with a bandana and there were no apparent gunshot wounds, El Pais newspaper reported, citing the Morelos Attorney General's office. Orta Salgado, a former reporter...

Three photojournalists who covered the perilous crime beat in the violence-torn eastern Mexico state of Veracruz were found slain and dumped in plastic bags in a canal on Thursday, less than a week after a reporter for an investigative newsmagazine was beaten and strangled in her home in the same state. Press freedom groups said all three photographers had temporarily fled the state after receiving threats last year. The organizations called for immediate government action to halt a wave of...

Venezuelan NGO "Espacio Público" (Public Space) counted 244 reports of freedom of expression violations, registered in 201 cases/events during 2011, which represents an increase of 16% over 2010. According to a report presented by the NGO, "Each week of 2011, (in average) 4.3 cases of violations of the content and scope of the right to freedom of expression occurred in Venezuela. These data point out to continuous freedom of expression violations." The most...

Osama bin Laden was trying to recruit a Mexican national with a valid passport to sneak into the US and cause mayhem, the Los Angeles Times is reporting. The paper, citing an anonymous former U.S. official, said the head of Al Qaeda was troubled by radical Islamic fundamentalists who had taken an oath of U.S. citizenship then tried to launch attacks on American soil. He believed doing so violated Islamic law. “Bin Laden wanted someone who had not pledged allegiance [to the U.S.]. He...

In a telephone call to journalists, a woman claiming to be a Farc member said the rebels were holding Romeo Langlois as a prisoner of war. Her statement appears to contradict a Farc announcement in February saying it was ending its policy of kidnappings. Mr Langlois disappeared while filming troops destroying cocaine laboratories. Prisoner of war A group of journalists covering the disappearance of Mr Langlois said they received a telephone call from a woman who said she belonged to the...

VERACRUZ, Mexico -- Authorities in the Mexican state of Veracruz say the body of a journalist with the national newsmagazine Proceso has been found dead inside her home. The Veracruz Attorney General's Office has released a statement saying Regina Martinez's body was found in the bathroom of her house in Xalapa, Veracruz, and that authorities believe she was murdered. The statement said that the journalist's body showed signs of "blows to the head and body" and initial evidence...

A former executive at a Canadian engineering firm who has been linked to a plot to smuggle Muammar Qaddafi’s son into Mexico has been arrested in Switzerland, officials said. Riadh Ben Aissa, a past executive vice president of engineering giant SNC-Lavalin’s construction arm, has been in custody in Switzerland since mid-April, the Swiss federal prosecutor’s office said late Sunday. “The state prosecutor’s office confirms the arrest of a Tunisian/Canadian...

The Mexican senate unanimously passed a law on April 24 that requires the national government to protect journalists and human rights activists when they receive threats, the legislative chamber said. “The senate approved the Law for Protection of Human Rights Defenders and Journalists, which will allow the government to implement preventive measures to guarantee the life and security of those in these professions and who are in an at-risk situation,” the chamber added. The...

Attacks against press and freedom of expression in Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia are less serious than violations occurred in Mexico, Colombia and Honduras, said Roberto Viciano, a Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Valencia (Spain), in a meeting of the Inter-American Press Association (IAPA) which is held in the Spanish city of Cádiz. Participants in the meeting discussed "The new Latin American constitutions and their impact on press freedom," Efe...

Senator Alejandro González Alcocer, President of the Justice Committee of the Mexican Senate Senator Ricardo Pacheco Rodríguez, Secretary of the Justice Committee of the Mexican Senate Senator Leonel Godoy Rangel, Secretary of the Justice Committee of the Mexican Senate Dear Senators González Alcocer, Pacheco Rodríguez, and Godoy Rangel: I am writing on behalf of Human Rights Watch regarding the various legislative proposals being drafted in Congress to reform...