The co-owner of the weekly Boca do Povo, Edgar Ribeiro Pereira de Oliveira, was killed on June 9 in Campo Grande, in the State of Mato Grosso do Sul, in northwestern Brazil. Unknown suspects fired 15 gunshots from their car. According to police, the murder was characteristic of an execution. The weekly Oliveira managed was known in the region for its reporting on public corruption.
In a separate incident, on Tuesday, June 3, reporter Melyssa Martins Correia, from the newspaper Oeste Notícias, was killed in the city of Presidente Prudente, located in the State of São Paulo, in southeastern Brasil. Martins Correia, who ran the newspaper’s cultural supplement, was shot in the head.
Rafael Molina, chairman of the IAPA’s Committee on Freedom of the Press, emphasized that, “it is alarming that a few days after remembering the first anniversary of the murder of journalist Tim Lopes, we have to mourn two other murders in Brazil. We urge local governments to investigate and solve these new murders as soon as possible to safeguard the work of journalists.”
The IAPA’s Rapid Response Unit in Brazil began an investigation into
both killings to try to determine if they were related to their work as journalists.
According to the hemispheric organization, Brazil is among the most dangerous
countries to practice journalism. Since 1988 to date, 22 journalists have been
murdered.
As part of the “Let’s Put an End to Impunity” campaign, the
IAPA this month is distributing an advertisement that coincidentally deals with
Brazilian journalist, Reinaldo Coutinho da Silva, whose murder on August 29,
1995 remains unpunished.
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