New director for RSF’s Rio de Janeiro-based Latin America bureau

He will take over on 1 November from Emmanuel Colombié, the French journalist who has been the Rio de Janeiro-based bureau’s director ever since its creation in August 2015. The bureau covers more than 20 countries from Mexico to Argentina, including the Spanish-speaking Caribbean and Haiti.

Romeu will coordinate RSF’s network of 13 correspondents in the region and its representative and official partner in Mexico. He will also have regional responsibility for RSF’s advocacy and assistance operations and for developing systemic initiatives launched by RSF such as the Journalism Trust Initiative (JTI) and the Partnership for Information and Democracy.

“We would like to thank Emmanuel Colombié for developing RSF’s presence and activities in Latin America, with major successes and outstanding campaigns, especially in Mexico and Brazil,” RSF secretary-general Christophe Deloire said. “We are delighted that Artur Romeu, whose qualities we know, is taking over from him. In particular, we know that Artur is keen to take RSF into a new phase of its development in the region. Internationally, RSF manages to be present on the ground with reporters while at the same time launching structural initiatives in the information and digital arenas. We have very ambitious projects in Latin America.”

A journalist who specialised in international politics and has a master’s in human rights and humanitarian action from “Sciences Po” Paris, Romeu, 34, has been helping to develop the Latin America bureau for the past seven years. In particular, he has participated in the deployment of RSF’s major advocacy, communication, research and training actions in Brazil, Colombia and Mexico and, since 2019, he has been in charge of project management, assistance coordination and bureau development.

“I am honoured to represent, in Latin America, an organisation known throughout the world for its defence of press freedom and the right to news and information,” Romeu said. “In response to the upsurge in censorship, disinformation and violence against the media, RSF's Latin America bureau will be fully mobilised in defence of journalistic freedom, independence and pluralism and those who embody these ideals – journalists, who, despite the risks, refuse to remain silent in the face of the powerful. We will fight tirelessly in the field to defend the right to information.”

Founded in 1985, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is a non-governmental, non-profit organisation that promotes journalistic freedom, independence and pluralism. It has a recognised public interest function and has consultative status with the United Nations, UNESCO, the Council of Europe, the International Organisation of the Francophonie and the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights. Headquartered in Paris, it has 13 bureaux and sections and carries out its work with the help of a network of correspondents in 130 countries and 15 local partner organisations.