|
 New-York based press freedom organization Committee to Protect Journalists is praising the Brazilian authorities for a conviction in the June 2003 murder of Brazilian journalist Nicanor Linhares but also is calling on the authorities to ensure that all those involved in the killing of the radio host are brought to justice.
Judge Francisco Mário Liberato sentenced Cássio Santana de Sousa to 23 years in prison for his participation in Linhares' killing in the northern city of Fortaleza, in the state of Ceará, according to Brazilian news reports. Santana was convicted on a murder charge, the national daily O Globo reported.
"We welcome this conviction as a sign that those who murder journalists will not go unpunished," said CPJ Americas Senior Program Coordinator Carlos Lauría. "Brazilian authorities must now ensure that all other individuals involved in the murder of Nicanor Linhares - including the masterminds - are punished to the full extent of the law."
Linhares, 42, the magnetic and controversial host of the top-rated "Encontro Político" (Political Encounter) on Rádio Vale do Jaguaribe in the city of Limoeiro do Norte in the state of Ceará, was killed on June 30, 2003, by two armed men who stormed into the booth where Linhares was taping his show. Prior to his death, the journalist had actively supported a mayoral campaign on his show and fiercely criticized rival candidate Maria Arivan de Holanda Lucena on a daily basis.
In October 2003, prosecutors accused Arivan and her husband, federal judge José María de Oliveira Lucena, of hiring the two hit men who gunned down Linhares. In May 2004, at the request of federal prosecutors, a judge from the Brasília-based Superior Tribunal of Justice, the nation's second highest court, indicted the couple.
Lucena was formally charged on March 20, 2008, by the Superior Tribunal of Justice, which has the power to try judges, according to local news reports. Arivan asked to be tried with her husband, but in December 2008, the tribunal ruled that she should be tried before a trial court, said local news reports. No trial date has been set.
Lindenor de Jesus Moura Júnior and Francisco José de Oliveira Maia, the two gunmen, were respectively sentenced to 26 and eight years in prison in December 2008, according to local press reports. They have both appealed the decisions, the national daily O Globo reported.
Prosecutors accused Francisco Edésio Almeida, a former sergeant in the Brazilian army, of serving as an intermediary, the Brazilian daily O Povo reported. However, due to a change in counsel, his trial has been postponed, the local press reported.
Five radio journalists, including Linhares, have been killed in the Northeast Region of Brazil alone since 2001, making this region one of the deadliest areas for journalists in the Americas, a 2006 CPJ special report found.
Throughout the Northeast interior, radio commentators are routinely involved in politics, campaigning for allies and attacking foes. They often use the airwaves as a springboard for their own political aspirations. Yet these commentators also give voice to the local population's everyday concerns and directly intervene to provide assistance to the poor.
Historically, Brazil has had a poor record of solving journalist murders. It currently ranks 13th on CPJ's Impunity Index, which calculates the number of unsolved journalist murders as a percentage of a country's population.
Brazilian journalists covering crime, corruption, and local politics have faced brutal consequences. But unlike most countries on this index, Brazil has had some recent success in prosecuting the killers of journalists, obtaining convictions in four slayings, including Linhares', since 1999.
"This record is an important step in the quest for justice in Brazil," added Lauría. "By prosecuting journalists' murderers, Brazil is making strides in the fight against impunity worldwide."
 |
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.