By Isabela Fraga
Reporter Mauri König was advised to leave Brazil due to threats he received after publishing accusations against the police in Paraná state, reported the newspaper Folha de São Paulo.
The reporter for the Gazeta do Povo newspaper in Curitiba, Paraná, who is also the director of the Brazilian Association of Investigative Journalism, coordinated a series of articles for the newspaper with assistance from three other reporters also threatened and under protection: Felippe Aníbal, Diego Ribeiro and Albari Rosa.
According to the website UOL, König learned that five police officers left Rio de Janeiro in two vehicles to attack his home. The supposed police officers also threatened the editors of Gazeta do Povo.
The Inter American Press Association condemned the death threats against König and the other reporters and called for the Brazilian authorities to immediately provide protection and investigate the threats.
König told the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) that he began to receive threats online after publishing the reports in Gazeta do Povo in May 2012. CPJ noted on its website that four other reporters were killed in 2012 because of their journalistic work, three of which published corruption allegations.
Note from the editor: This story was originally published by the Knight Center’s blog Journalism in the Americas, the predecessor of LatAm Journalism Review.
