The trial of Guatemala’s ex-president General Efraín Ríos Montt and his former head of military intelligence Mauricio Rodríguez Sánchez -due to start on Tuesday 19 March – marks a long-awaited opportunity for justice for the victims of crimes against humanity committed against Guatemala’s Mayan communities, Amnesty International said today. In 1999, a UN-backed truth commission found that during Guatemala’s ...

Santiago de Chile, January 28th 2013 - Mayors for Peace welcomes the renewed commitment of the 33 Heads of State of Latin America and the Caribbean to work towards a world free of nuclear weapons. The leaders reaffirmed the priority objective to reach a world free of nuclear weapons in the Santiago Declaration adopted today at the First Summit of CELAC (Community of Latin American and Caribbean States). The ...

Reporters Without Borders reiterates its condemnation of the newly-adopted General Telecommunications Law (LGT), which will penalize small radio stations, especially indigenous community radio stations, that are waiting to be officially assigned broadcast frequencies.   Approved on third reading by the Guatemalan congress on 19 November, it was signed into law by President Otto Pérez Molina on 6 December. R ...

As a result of a constitutional challenge filed by the journalist Randall Rivera against Costa Rica’s Information Crimes Law, the Supreme Court has temporarily suspended parts of the controversial legislation, in particular Article 288 providing for prison sentences of between four and eight years for anyone publishing “secret political information”.   Reporters Without Borders remains vigilant, but welcome ...

Mainstream media have focussed for many days on Hurricane Sandy’s impact on the U.S.–predictions, images, surveys on who will win the presidential election on 6 November, etc. Meanwhile, very little attention has been paid to the fact that some 1.8 million Haitians have also been affected according to the United Nations relief agency after its first assessment of the situation in the region, which alerted t ...

Reporters Without Borders calls for the creation of an independent commission of enquiry into revelations that Trinidad Guardian reporter Anika Gumbs-Sandiford's confidential phone records were illegally passed to a government agency.   The media freedom organization is also concerned about the effect of a smear operation against certain journalists and the government's desire to force the privately-owned b ...

The use of children as domestic workers is pervasive throughout Haiti. Though culturally accepted for generations, a new campaign has been launched to combat what is one of the worst forms of child labour. Her day starts at 4 a.m.. She wakes up before everyone else in the household. Silently, she empties the chamber pots and sweeps the floors. She draws several buckets of water from the pump down the street ...

Thousands of peoples from Haiti and other Caribbean countries have been risking their lives trying to escape by sea from difficult living situations in their homelands, the [UN](http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=42470&Cr=haiti&Cr1=) warns. ...

Adonis Felipe Bueso Gutiérrez, a reporter for the Christian radio station Stereo Naranja, was shot dead with two of his cousins on 8 July in Villanueva in the northern department of Cortés while on holiday visiting his family. He was to have taken part in celebrations on 21 July marking the first anniversary of the station, located in Sonoguera in the department of Colón. ...

Radio journalist Alfredo Villatoro, kidnapped on his way to work last week, was found dead yesterday on the outskirts of Tegucigalpa six days after his abduction. ...