RIO DE JANEIRO: Two Brazilian journalists are in hiding after receiving death threats in connection with exposure of police misconduct, media groups said Wednesday.
Mauri Konig, a 46-year-old journalist with the People Gazette in the southern city of Curitiba, has been at an undisclosed location since Monday after he and his family received death threats linked to a story he wrote exposing police misconduct, including embezzlement, said the Brazilian Association of Investigative Journalism. It is led by Konig.
In 2000 Konig was brutally beaten by suspected Paraguayan police on the Brazilian-Paraguayan border as he was investigating the kidnapping of nine young Brazilians who were to be drafted into the Paraguayan military.
Meanwhile, Andre Caramante, a veteran Folha de Sao Paulo reporter, fled abroad with his family in September after he received death threats over his claim that the ex-chief of the feared Rota elite police unit in Sao Paulo used his Facebook page to incite violence during an election campaign.
Paulo Telhada, the former police commander, was subsequently elected municipal councilor on a tough law and order platform.
"This attempt to muzzle press freedom is not new and not restricted to me," Caramante said in a recent BBC Brazil interview.
"In Brazil, even after the end of the military dictatorship, there are signs that sectors of the security forces are trying to prevent the disclosure of information," he added.
The Inter-American Press Association reported that six Brazilians journalists were murdered in this country this year, while the Committee to Protect Journalists put the figure at four.
Comments
Comments are closed.