18 Apr 12 | Americas, Index Index, minipost
A police officer investigating a journalist’s murder was shot dead on Saturday by two men on a motorcycle in Ponta Porã on the Brazil-Paraguay border. Paulo César Santos Magalhães, who was part of a special unit fighting organised crime, was leading the investigation into the death of journalist Paulo Rocaro, also shot dead by two gunmen on a motorcycle in February. Magalhães stopped at traffic lights before being shot 13 times. Four other Brazilian journalists besides Rocaro have been murdered this year. Investigations into their deaths are ongoing.
29 Mar 12 | Americas, Index Index, minipost
Two Brazilian journalists were murdered near the Paraguayan border over the weekend. Onei de Moura, owner of weekly newspaper Costa Oeste was shot and killed in Santa Helena by a man he had allegedly argued with earlier in the day. The suspected gunman turned himself him in, but was later released. Reporter Divino Aparecido Calvalho from Radio Cultura AM was ambushed as he left his car at the radio station. Calvalho was shot three times, but managed to escape in his car. Whilst attempting to drive to a hospital, he crashed into a parked ambulance, and died some time later.
13 Mar 12 | Americas, Index Index
Journalist Milton Alves Jr. was reportedly abducted on 7 March in Aracaju, capital of the Brazilian state of Sergipe. After placing a hood over his head, Alves’s Alves’s kidnappers took him for a drive in his own car. He told police that a gun was fired five times during the drive and threatened to kill him. Alves, son of former director of the National Federation of Journalists (FENAJ), which defends rights of journalists, Milton Aves Sr. The journalist was released early the next morning, and said that his abductors told him that next time, he’d be killed. Police are now investigating the kidnapping.
14 Feb 12 | Americas, Index Index, minipost
Brazilian newspaper editor Paulo Roberto Cardoso Rodrigues was shot dead on Sunday night, making him the second Brazilian journalist killed in less than a week and the third in 2012. The journalist, who was known as Paulo Rocaro, was driving home at night in Ponta Porá, a city near the country’s border with Paraguay, when two men on a motorcycle shot him at least five times. Cardoso was the editor of the local daily Jornal Da Praça and news website Mercosul News, and frequently wrote about local politics.
