11 June 2002
INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER MURDERED AMIDST CLIMATE OF IMPUNITY
Press-freedom groups are mourning the death of award-winning Brazilian investigative reporter Tim Lopes, tortured and murdered by a gang allegedly led by a Rio de Janeiro drug trafficker. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and Reporters Without Borders (Reporters sans frontières, RSF) say authorities confirmed Lopes' death on 9 June after police arrested two members of a gang who said the journalist was kidnapped, tortured and speared to death.
Lopes, a reporter for TV Globo, had been missing since 2 June after travelling to the Rio de Janeiro favela (poor neighbourhood) of Vila Cruzeiro. He was carrying a hidden camera and was investigating drug traffickers' activities in Vila Cruzeiro, including the sexual exploitation of minors, notes CPJ. It was Lopes' fourth visit to the favela.
On 9 June, police arrested two members of a gang led by drug trafficker Elias Pereira da Silva who claimed Lopes was kidnapped and taken to where Pereira da Silva was staying. They said Pereira da Silva killed Lopes with a sword and had his body burned and buried secretly in a cemetery, CPJ reports. At press time, police are continuing to search for Lopes' body.
CPJ and the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) are urging Brazilian authorities to conduct a thorough investigation into the reporter's murder. The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) has also announced that it will send a member of its Rapid Response Unit investigative team to Brazil.
In December 2001, Lopes won Brazil's highest journalism award for a report on drug trafficking, notes CPJ. Filmed with a hidden camera, it showed how drug traffickers were openly dealing drugs in a market-like setting in one of Rio de Janeiro's favelas. In September 2001, one of the report's co-producers, Cristina Guimaraes, fled Rio de Janeiro after receiving death threats.
In CPJ's 2002 survey of press freedom in Brazil, the group says journalists continue to face harassment and violence for their work. At least four Brazilian journalists have been killed because of their work since 1996, the survey notes. In most of these killings, the crimes remain unsolved, and those responsible have gone unpunished.
The last journalist killed was Mário Coelho de Almeida Filho in 16 August 2001. Director of the newspaper "A Verdade" in Magé near Rio de Janeiro, he was murdered a day before testifying at a defamation trial launched by two local politicians whom he had accused of embezzling public funds [See IFEX Communiqu%26#233; #10-33]. ">http://communique.ifex.org/articles.cfm?system_id=3482">Communiqué #10-33].
To view CPJ's survey on Brazil, go to www.cpj.org. ">http://www.cpj.org/attacks01/americas01/brazil.html">www.cpj.org.
For more details about Lopes' murder, see www.cpj.org, www.rsf.org, www.ifj.org and www.sipiapa.org.
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