MIAMI, United States. – Representatives of organizations that make up the Southern Voices Network will meet on Wednesday, February 18 in Miami to analyze the current context of journalism in Latin America, in a meeting titled “Press freedom under attack in Latin America. Risks, threats and attacks,” according to a statement from the network itself.
The event will take place between 9:00 am and 12:00 pm at the Green Library of Florida International University (FIU) and will feature the participation of journalists and executives from organizations that defend freedom of the press in Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Peru and Venezuela.
The call is aimed at journalists, media managers, representatives of organizations defending press freedom, journalism students and the general public interested in the topic.
The statement indicates that the meeting will be based on “records and data generated by partner organizations” of the Network and that it seeks to “raise the situation of press freedom in restrictive societies and in a regional context of growing threats against media and journalists.”
The program includes two analysis tables. The first, titled “Journalism in restrictive societies: Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela and El Salvador,” will address the situation of journalism in those countries “based on the most recent findings” from organizations such as the Cuban Institute for Freedom of Expression and Press (ICLEP), the Foundation for Freedom of Expression and Democracy (FLED), the Press and Society Institute of Venezuela (IPYS Venezuela) and the Association of Journalists of El Salvador (APES), the call indicates.
The second panel, “Trends in Latin America to limit the practice of journalism,” will examine regional phenomena such as the exile of journalists and media, actions of organized crime against the press, the approval of restrictive legal frameworks promoted by States and the differentiated violence suffered by female journalists in the region. In that block, the text adds, speakers will also emphasize “the increase in digital violence against media and journalists.”
The statement specifies that representatives of the Press and Society Institute (IPYS), based in Peru, and Fundamedios, from Ecuador, will also participate; and that the meeting also aims to “promote a regional dialogue on the importance of defending press freedom as a fundamental pillar of democracy and the exercise of collective rights.”
Voces del Sur was born in 2017 with the objective of promoting and defending freedom of the press, expression and access to information in Latin America. To this end, the statement indicates, the network designed “a rigorous methodology, based on indicator 16.10.1 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), in order to independently monitor and record violations of freedoms and information rights.”
Currently, the Southern Voices Network is made up of 17 organizations in the same number of countries in the region: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela.
