The following is a 25 February 2000 IAPA press release: IAPA PROTESTS ASSAULT ON BRAZILIAN NEWSMEN MIAMI, Florida (Feb. 25) – The Inter American Press Association today expressed outrage at the beating of three newspaper employees in Brazil and called on the government to conduct a thorough investigation into the incident and punish those responsible. […]
The following is a 25 February 2000 IAPA press release:
IAPA PROTESTS ASSAULT ON BRAZILIAN NEWSMEN
MIAMI, Florida (Feb. 25) – The Inter American Press Association today expressed outrage at the beating of three newspaper employees in Brazil and called on the government to conduct a thorough investigation into the incident and punish those responsible.
Reporter Erick Guimaraes, photographer Marco Studart and their driver Valdir Gomez Soares from the daily newspaper O Povo in Fortaleza (Northeast Brazil), were assaulted Wednesday after being arrested while investigating reports of corruption in the municipal government of Hidrolandia, 150 miles from the Ceará state capital. Studart and Soares said they were tortured during the assault, which, they charged, the local mayor instigated and took part in.
The chairman of the IAPAâs Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information, Rafael Molina, called on the Brazilian authorities to look into the matter right away and take action against the perpetrators “and so guarantee free speech.”
“It is outrageous that in a democratic society with a constitution that protects freedom of information, reprisals should be taken against journalists for the mere act of investigating the activities of public officials,” Molina, of Santo Domingo, the Dominican Republic, said.
The hemispheric free-press organization representative also complained of other recent violent attacks on newsmen in Brazil, among them one on photographer Juárez Rodrigues from the Estado de Minas newspaper in Belo Horizonte on February 17.
In response to the growing wave of violence against reporters and editors in Brazil and other countries in Latin America, the IAPA earlier this month launched a Rapid Response Unit to carry out an on-site investigation immediately following any such incident with the aim of bringing the guilty promptly to justice.
