It is the third murder committed this year in Peru amid a severe deterioration of press freedom.
Image from Infobae.
It is the third murder committed this year in Peru amid a severe deterioration of press freedom.
Miami (December 8, 2025) – The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) condemns the killing of journalist Fernando Núñez in Peru, the third such crime committed this year in the country. The hemispheric organization urges the authorities to conduct a thorough, timely, and transparent investigation to identify, arrest, and prosecute those responsible.
Núñez, a journalist and director of the news portal Kamila TV, and his brother David were ambushed on December 6 on the Panamericana Norte highway, in the La Libertad region, by armed individuals traveling in a vehicle. The attackers opened fire on them as they rode a motorcycle after carrying out a news coverage assignment in the area, according to press reports. Fernando Núñez died at the scene as a result of the gunfire, while his brother was seriously injured and remains hospitalized in critical condition, according to news reports.
Núñez was also a lawyer and secretary of records for the Chepén chapter of the National Association of Journalists (ANP). The ANP immediately condemned the killing and warned about the persistence of impunity in attacks against the press in Peru. In addition to Núñez, journalists Gastón Medina, in Ica, and Raúl Celis, in Iquitos, were also killed in 2025, cases documented by the IAPA.
IAPA President Pierre Manigault expressed his solidarity with Núñez’s family and with his brother David—who is fighting for his life—and urged the authorities to carry out “a rigorous investigation to identify all those involved in this serious act of violence.” Manigault, president of Evening Post Publishing Inc. in Charleston, South Carolina, added that “impunity sends a devastating message to society and encourages these crimes to be repeated.”
For her part, the chair of the IAPA’s Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information, Martha Ramos, called on the authorities to investigate the crime while seriously considering possible connections to Núñez’s journalistic work, including potential reprisals for his reporting. Ramos, editorial director of Organización Editorial Mexicana (OEM), stressed that “society needs concrete answers that must translate into real progress in the investigation and justice for Fernando Núñez, his family, and Peruvian journalism.”
The report on Peru presented at the IAPA General Assembly last October noted that this year has been one of the worst in recent decades for press freedom in the country, where journalists have been killed, others received death threats, and attacks were recorded nationwide.
Last March, an IAPA delegation visited Peru and confirmed an increasingly hostile environment for journalistic work, including judicial persecution of critical journalists, disinformation campaigns by the State, stigmatization of dissenting voices, restrictions on access to public information, and legislative proposals that directly threaten informational freedoms.
The IAPA is a non-profit organization dedicated to defending and promoting freedom of the press and expression in the Americas. It comprises more than 1,300 publications from the western hemisphere and is based in Miami, Florida, United States.