|
 Paris-based international freedom of press organization Reporters Without Borders is hailing the progress being made in the investigation into the abduction and torture of two journalists employed by the Brazilian daily newspaper O Dia and their driver in the Rio de Janeiro favela of Batan on May 14.
Three military police officers wanted in connection with the case - Fábio Gonçalves Soares (also known as Fabinho Catiri), Marcos Antonio Alves da Silva (aka Marcos do BOPE) and André Luiz de Mattos (aka Cocada) - were arrested in a major operation in Rio involving more than 80 policemen. A fourth man identified as Nilson Bueno (aka Nilson Faustão) was also arrested.
Items seized during the operation included equipment belonging to an elite Rio de Janeiro state military police unit called the BOPE. The four detainees are to be charged with "forming a militia." Four other members of the military police are still being sought.
The O Dia employees were tortured for seven hours after being kidnapped by a militia based in Batan, where the journalists had been preparing a report for the previous two weeks. The case caused an outcry in Brazil, especially as police officers were allegedly involved in the militia.
The two alleged bosses of the militia - civilian police inspector Odinei Fernando da Silva (aka Dinei and Zero Um) and Davi Liberato de Araújo (aka Zero Dois) - were arrested in June.
"We salute the great progress being made towards solving this case and we hope a trial will soon be held that sheds light on the circumstance of this abduction and identifies all those responsible," Reporters Without Borders said.
"This investigation must be an example in combating impunity. It nonetheless confirms the existence of serious abuses within police units that will need far-reaching measures."
The Case
The reporter, photographer and driver of O Dia had already lived for 14 days inside the Batan Favela gathering material for a special report on the community when on the night of April 14 there was an ambush by 10 armed men with Ninja bonnets covering their faces.
After trying to convince in vain the residents in the area to lynch the O Dia's employees the criminals went to the house the team had rented in the slum and where the reporter had stayed. Getting to the house they subdued the reporter, drawing guns as if they were policemen. "You are arrested for ideological falsehood," said one of the hooded men, later identified as Zero Um.
All three were then taken to another house in the favela and waited for a "colonel" who was supposed to order their execution. In the meantime the journalist, photographer and driver were physically tortured and threatened. After the colonel arrived the torture session continued with electric shocks and choking by plastic bags.
There was also psychological torture with the militiamen showing they knew many details of the hostages' personal life. After hours of terror the bandits reached a verdict: the newspaper workers would be released.
Before they were let go however, they had their cell phones and money stolen. It was already 4:30 am when they were left at Avenida Brasil, in downtown Rio.
 |
Subscribe to this comment's feed
The small, coastal town of Condé is located just a twenty minute's drive from João Pessoa, the capital of Paraíba. The Northeast of Brazil has historically been a place of encounter and mixing between peoples. For millenia groups of indigenous people fished, farmed, migrated and sometimes fought along this large, fertile area. 
The Brazilian diplo-MÁ-cia (bad diplomacy) carries on its accelerated course towards the non-acknowledgment of human rights, although sometimes it takes pleasure in saying that it does precisely the opposite. The visit of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is another example of a diplomatic omission that verges on hypocrisy. 
On July 4, 2006, representatives of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay met in Caracas to sign the protocol for the entrance of Venezuela into the Southern Common Market (Mercosur). After two and a half years, the protocol was approved by the legislative bodies of Argentina and Uruguay, and as of now it may be only days away from being ratified by the continent's economic megalith, Brazil. 
Some sectors of the fight against AIDS have suggested that Thabo Mbeki, the former president of South Africa, committed genocide through his absence from the fight against the illness in his country throughout his two terms. 
One hundred and eleven years after Brazil abolished slavery, the number of workers deprived of their freedom is still huge. They raise cattle, produce charcoal, sugar cane or timber. Some of them, most undocumented Bolivians, work in basements of small apparel factories in São Paulo and other metropolis. 
On November 7, 2009 a few friends and I had an opportunity to take a look inside a Brazilian jail outside the city of Rio de Janeiro. We were able to take some amateur footage of our experience on video (see link below). It's no surprise, of course, that the typical Brazilian jail lacks some of the functionality of those in North America or Europe, but our experience that day was quite shocking. 
Depletion of the Amazon Rainforest is not a new concern facing environmentalists, biologists, ecologists, and a growing number of the Amazonian indigenous peoples. For decades they have feared for the fate of the world's most biologically diverse and species-rich hothouse. 
Geisy Arruda made history this week in Brazil, but for all the wrong reasons. What began as a poorly planned fashion statement has become a worldwide tale. Geisy decided to wear a pink mini-dress to her private college in São Paulo state, and after that, all hell broke loose. 
The push of vigilante groups in Rio de Janeiro's favelas (shantytowns) in the last three years is the most important and alarming information of the just-released study by the Rio de Janeiro University's Violence Research Center (Nupev-Uerj). 
A dispute over drug trafficking territory in Rio de Janeiro has intensified lately, leaving in its wake unprecedented acts of violence, such as the downing of a police helicopter in the northern zone of the city on October 17. Three policemen died and another two were injured. This event has drawn the attention of the international media, who are raising the issue of public security for the 2016 Olympics to be held in Rio.