In Brazil, a country with a history of impunity concerning crimes against journalists, a man has been sentenced to 12 years in prison for the 2013 murder of journalist Rodrigo Neto, reporter for newspaper Vale do Aço, in Minas Gerais.
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).
Brazilian authorities are investigating the murder of journalist Evany José Metzker whose body was found decapitated on the outskirts of the town of Padre Paraíso in the state of Minas Gerais on May 18, reported the newspaper O Globo.
Authorities in Paraguay have sent Brazil a formal request for the extradition of the man accused of being the mastermind behind the murder of journalist Pablo Medina on Oct.16, 2014.
Three days before the end of their crowdfunding campaign, Brazilian journalism nonprofit Pública, an investigative organization led by women, met its goal. The campaign “Ocupe A Pública”, launched on Jan. 21, aimed to collect $50,000 Brazilian reals (around US $18,000) to fund 10 stories with themes chosen by reader-collaborators who will also be involved with their production.
“Remember that journalism is a matter too serious to leave only to journalists.” This phrase captures the spirit of the new crowdfunding project from Pública of Brazil.
Paraguay, Brazil and Mexico placed in the top 20 deadliest countries for journalists in 2014, according to a special year-end report by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).
In Brazil and Mexico, ranked seventh and eleventh by the Committee to Protect Journalists as the countries with the highest levels of impunity in the murder of journalists, two advocacy groups are mapping these attacks in an effort to increase their security.
After being sentenced to seven months in prison for writing a fictional essay, journalist Cristian Góes has been ordered to pay 30 thousand Brazilian Reals (US$11,300) in compensation for moral damages to judge Edson Ulisses, vice president of the Sergipe Justice Tribunal.
Impunity in the murder of journalists is not new in Latin America. In the last decade, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) reported 72 instances of journalists killed for their work. About 78 percent of these cases faced complete or partial impunity. But in Mexico, Colombia and Brazil, levels of impunity have surpassed those of any other Latin American country, according to CPJ’s 2014 Global Impunity Index.
When the North American missionary Dorothy Mae Stang was killed in 2005, the Amazon region, its people and its conflicts, briefly dominated the front pages of newspapers across the country. Before the crime, the project Dorothy had been developing since the 1970s to defend the forest and communities of Anapu in the southwestern region of the Pará state, had never made it into mainstream media.
Paraguayan journalist Pablo Medina Velázquez, murdered in the northeastern Canindeyú department while working on assignment, is the third journalist to be killed in the country this year and the latest in a series of journalists to be killed in the region in recent years. His death underscores the dangerous and deteriorating conditions for journalists working along the Brazilian border.