Police found the tortured body of Djalma Santos da Conceição, a 53-year-old journalist for community radio station RCA FM in the state of Bahia, on May 23, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).
Just six days earlier, the decapitated body of blogger José Evany Metzker was found outside Padre Paraíso in Minas Gerais.
Both Conceição and Metzker produced critical reports about crime and corruption.
A CPJ associate called the murders “a troubling escalation of anti-press violence” in the countries.
Conceição’s brother told a local news outlet that masked men kidnapped the journalist late Friday night, May 22, while he was playing samba music at a bar in Governador Mangabeira.
Conceição’s body was found in the rural village of Timbó on Saturday morning; he had been shot multiple times, according to São Gonçalo Ahora. Photos from the news outlet’s website show that his body, with a tambourine laying on top, was found in a green area off of a road.
A police officer told CPJ that he had been “tortured, his right eye had been gouged out and his tongue had been hacked off."
Family members told news outlet São Gonçalo Ahora he had received constant threats.
CPJ and the Brazilian Association of Community Broadcasting (ABRAÇO-BA) called for investigation of and punishment for the crime.
CPJ previously has called attention to high levels of violence against journalists and impunity in those cases in Brazil.
The organization reported that at least 12 journalists were killed because of their work since January 2011. CPJ has a rigorous procedure for determining whether deaths are linked to work completed as a journalist.
Additionally, Brazil ranks 11th in the CPJ 2014 Global Impunity index.
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.
