Brazil: Within One Week, Two Journalists Murdered

In just the past week, two journalists have been gunned down on the streets of Brazil.

The first, Pedro Palma, editor of Panorama Regional, was shot and killed outside his home in Miguel Pedrera, a suburb of Rio de Janeiro. The second, José Lacerda da Silva, cameraman for regional TV Cabo Mossoró’s TCM, was shot on his way to the supermarket in the northeastern city of Mossoró.

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Camille Soulier, head of the Reporters Without Borders Americas desk, condemned the murders and stated, “These murders are sadly indicative of the dangers to which the media are exposed in Brazil. Five journalists were murdered in 2013 and none of these cases has so far been solved. We fear that more cases will go unpunished in Brazil, which [was one of] Latin America’s worst performers in the 2014 Reporters Without Borders press freedom index — ranked 111th out of 180 countries.”

Police have yet to identify suspects in these cases and are still working on developing possible motives. In Palma’s case, authorities suspect “queima de arquivo” — witness elimination.

Source: Reporters Without Borders.