FUNDAMEDIOS REGIONAL REPORT 2022
Violence against the press in Latin America was the prevailing trend in 2022. The region has had an unprecedented number of journalists murdered for doing their job. Chile and the United States, relatively safe countries, have joined the macabre count of the violent realities of Mexico or Haiti. 39 journalists were murdered in 2022.
To silence the truth, nefarious actors increasingly recur to judicial harassment via spurious trials and false accusations of money laundering or asset laundering. Justice systems at the service of repressive governments have endorsed the detention and, in several cases, the imprisonment for up to 15 years of journalists in Nicaragua, Cuba, Venezuela, and Guatemala. Some journalists are detained in inhuman conditions and subjected to physical and psychological torture, deprived of contact with their families, no food, and no access to reading materials.
The deterrent effect of the extreme State violence exercised via arbitrary arrests, lack of procedural due process, and the fear of physical aggression or murder, has resulted in transforming 2022 into an exodus year for journalists.
The number of journalists who have had to leave their homes or seek asylum in other countries has increased dramatically. Many Venezuelan journalists who had emigrated in previous years were joined in 2022 by Nicaraguan, Salvadoran, and Guatemalan journalists who cannot continue practicing journalism in their place of origin.
States are, in many cases, the very perpetrators of violence; in other cases, they act passively, not preventing the atrocities committed by organized crime. Prevailing impunity and lack of justice are gradually silencing courageous voices, forcing the closure of media outlets and leaving fewer and fewer spaces for independent journalism to report corruption and give voice to citizen demands.
We invite you to review the Fundamedios 2022 Report, which summarizes the regional press freedom state.