The author of a discredited report linking autism to the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine has filed a defamation suit against the British Medical Journal. Andrew Wakefield launched his libel case against three defendants in the United...
CATEGORY: Americas
Cuba: Blogger appeals to Brazilian president for help to leave island
Dissident Cuban blogger Yoani Sánchez has appealed to Brazil's president to help her leave the Caribbean island. A strong critic of the country's Communist regime, Sánchez has been accused by authorities of conducting a "cyberwar" against the...
Brazil: Radio reporter shot dead
Brazilian radio reporter Laécio de Souza was shot dead by two men yesterday in Salvador, in the north east of the country. Police said the journalist, a local news reporter for radio station Sucesso FM, had been receiving threats on his mobile...
Peru: Mob vandalises newspaper office
The newsroom of a Peruvian newspaper was attacked by a mob in the early hours of Thursday morning (1 December). The offices of El Sol de los Andes in Huancayo were attacked following a series of reports in the paper linking criminal gangs to police...
Mexico: Slander and libel decreminalised
Slander and libel have been decriminalised by the Mexican Senate. The senate approved the repeal of Articles 1 and 31 of the Crimes Act, with a unanimous decision. Mexico have joined El Salvador as the second Latin American country to decriminalise...
Ecuador: Twitter user receives warning from government official
A government official in Ecuador has issued a public warning against a Twitter user following posts on the micro-blogging site. Betty Escobar, an Ecuadorian citizen who lives in the United States was warned by Fernando Cordero, the President of the...
Mexican news site shuts down after cyber attack
The website of the weekly newspaper Riodoce was taken down by a cyber attack. The DDoS attack follows the murders of two unidentified twitter users in Nuevo Laredo and the slaying of two workers of an Internet news site and blog. All occurred in...
US piracy law could threaten human rights
As debates continue around the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), Cynthia M Wong argues that policy makers must look more closely at whether the bill truly supports free expression
Twitter user arrested for joking about helicopter crash
At least one Mexican Twitter user was detained by local police after a series of sarcastic tweets made after a helicopter crash that killed Mexico's interior minister Francisco Blake Mora, as well as seven other Mexican officials. A citizen...
Mexico: Second moderator from anti-crime site killed
The fourth murder of a blogger in the northern Mexico state of Tamaulipas has confirmed the suspicion many journalists have in this country: that organised crime has become more sophisticated in their interception capabilities. The decapitated...
