The director-general of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Irina Bokova, condemned the April 9 killing of Brazilian journalist Luciano Leitão Pedrosa.
“Journalists must be free to work without fear,” she said, quoted in the UNESCO press release. “This killing…must not go unpunished.”
Pedrosa was shot to death in a restaurant in the northeastern city of Vitória de Santo Antão, Pernambuco. The journalist, who covered criminal allegations and police issues on his TV and radio shows, had reportedly received threats for his work.
UNESCO joins critics from the Committee to Protect Journalists, the Inter American Press Association, and Brazil’s National Newspaper Association. The groups have called on the government to guarantee the practice of journalism free of violence and threats.
In criticizing the state of journalist safety in Brazil, Bokova also referred to the near-fatal March shooting of Rio de Janiero-based blogger Ricardo Gama.
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.
