Tim Lopes, 51, a reporter for the Brazilian television network TV Globo, was last seen on Sunday, June 2 in the low-income neighborhood of Cruceiro on the northern outskirts of Rio de Janeiro. It is believed his disappearance may be linked to his reporting on gangs involved in sex and drug trafficking.
Expressing his alarm at Lopes disappearance, Rafael Molina, chairman of the IAPAs Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information, said that "what disturbs us is that in Brazil lawbreakers and organized crime are setting the guidelines for freedom of expression."
Molina, editor of the Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, news magazine Ahora, added that "this is a situation that we have seen in a number of countries in the Americas, where illegal groups, buoyed by the corruption, negligence and incompetence of the authorities, desecrate the peoples right to know, harass and assault journalists and generate self-censorship."
Police reported that they had found in the area where the journalist disappeared charred skeletal remains showing signs of having been shot and said they planned to carry out DNA testing to determine if they were Lopes.
The authorities have speculated that Lopes, who had been reporting on drug dealing in other Rio de Janeiro high-crime suburbs, may have been mistakenly taken to be a police officer and been executed by drug traffickers operating in the area.
Another reporter from the television network, Cristina Guimarães, received threats in January after working with Lopes on a story on the illicit narcotics trade and subsequently quit the network for fear of further reprisals.
The IAPA announced that it planned to send a member
of its Rapid Response Unit investigative team to inquire into Lopes disappearance.
Figures compiled by the IAPA show that 18 journalists have been killed in Brazil
since 1988.
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