By Isabela Fraga
After the killing of three journalists, Brazil has the highest number of deaths related to practicing journalism in the Americas this year, according to research conducted by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), reported the website Terra.
According to data from CPJ, Brazil is tied with Pakistan, with three killed reporters each, for the third highest number of killed journalists in 2012. It follows Syria at 18 and eight in Somalia. Counts from other press organizations put the number of killed journalists by August 2012 already approaching the total for 2011. Estimates range from 107 killed reporters, according to the Press Emblem Campaign, to 90, according to the International News Safety Institute (INSI), reported the newspaper Folha de São Paulo.
It is important to remember that the numbers reported by CPJ are only deaths attributed to the journalists' work. In other Latin American countries there are more killed journalists but the motives behind the crimes are disputed, CPJ said. In Mexico, five press workers were killed in 2012.
The most recent case in Brazil was when sports radio reporter Valério Luiz was shot to death leaving his office on July 5. Besides Luiz, journalist and blogger Décio Sá and reporter Mário Randolph Marques Lopes were killed for their reporting in April and February of 2012. These deaths led INSI to classify Brazil as one of the most dangerous countries for the press in the first half of 2012.
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.
