Inter American Press Association

The Inter American Press Association has described as positive the suspension of a secrecy law in Honduras which could have had serious consequences for the process of increased transparency that was initiated in the Central American country in 2006 with the Law on Transparency and Access to Public Information.

The Inter American Press Association will send an international delegation to Guatemala next month to take an on-site look into the situation involving senior officials and the editor of the newspaper elPeriódico, against whom several lawsuits have been filed in apparent reprisal for his work.

The Inter American Press Association holds the Venezuelan government responsible for the potential closure of the newspaper El Impulso, beset by obstacles to obtain permits to import newsprint and other supplies as part of an official strategy aimed at punishing independent media.

A judge has issued an order banning journalist José Rubén Zamora from going to the vice president’s home and place of work or study” for six months. The journalist had recently published investigations and criticism of alleged wrongdoing in the public office in which the vice president works.

Ildefonso Chávez, president and editor of the newspaper El Pueblo in Chihuahua, Mexico, has gone on a hunger strike in protest against the withdrawal of official advertising by the state government in an apparent reprisal for his editorial criticism.

Restrictions on access to the White House to cover President Barack Obama’s activities by accredited news photographers is being criticized by the Inter American Press Association, which called on the government to abolish such action, considering it to be “a serious obstruction of the practice of journalism and press freedom.”

The detention of and accusations against three journalists is linked to the publication of a photo from a Facebook video of two 14-year-old students having sex in a classroom. The photo, captured from the video taken on a mobile phone, accompanied an article on sexual activities at a rural school.

The Inter American Press Association has echoed a protest made by United States news organisations against the White House over restrictions on news coverage of the daily activities of President Barack Obama, reducing the climate of official transparency and editorial independence of news media.