Miami (November 27, 2012)—The killing of a journalist in Brazil – the sixth this year – today prompted the Inter American Press Association (IAPA) to urge the state and federal governments in the South American country to investigate promptly to determine the motives and who was responsible so as to put an end to the impunity surrounding such incidents.
Eduardo Ribeiro Carvalho, owner and publisher of the online newspaper Última Hora News (UHNews), was killed on November 21 by two gunmen riding a motorcycle who shot him as he was arriving home with his wife in the Giocondo Orsi neighborhood of Campo Grande, capital of Mato Grosso do Sul state on the border with Paraguay and Bolivia.
The chairman of the IAPA’s Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information, Claudio Paolillo, offered his sympathy to Carvalho’s family and colleagues and urged “the federal government to assume a relevant role in the investigations so as to put an end to impunity and the acts of violence against journalists in Brazil,” while recalling that this year another five journalists have been murdered in the country – Valério Luiz de Oliveira on July 5, Décio Sá (April 23), Paulo Roberto Cardoso Rodrigues (February 12), Mário Randolfo Marques Lopes (February 9) and Laécio de Souza (January 3).
Carvalho, 51, frequently published exposures of alleged corruption by politicians and police officers and according to local media he had been receiving death threats since last year. A retired policeman, he was regarded as controversial due to the aggressive style of his reports. It has yet to be established whether his murder was linked to his professional activity.
The IAPA is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to the defense and promotion of freedom of the press and of expression in the Americas. It is made up of more than 1,300 print publications from throughout the Western Hemisphere and is based in Miami, Florida. For more information please go to http://www.sipiapa.org.
