Journalist Gerardo Servián was critical of the local administration in Amambay. This latest attack on the life of a media worker demonstrates the necessity of ending impunity and of establishing guarantees for the work of the press.
This is a translation of a statement originally published on sindicatodeperiodistas.org on 5 March 2015.
The life of a journalist has once more been cut short. The victim was Gerardo Servián, who worked for the radio station Ciudad Nueva, 103.3 FM, in the city of Zanja Pytã, in the department of Amambay. The terrible incident took place on 4 March in Ponta Porã, Brazil. According to the press, two people who were riding on a motorcycle shot Servián.
This latest attack on the life of a media worker demonstrates the necessity of ending impunity and of establishing guarantees for the work of the press. Between 2014 and the present, three journalists have been killed in Amambay, and impunity continues in all three cases.
Servián was critical of the local administration in Amambay, which is lead by Marcelino Rolón. He was the brother of Francisco “Kiko” Servián, a journalist in the city of Pedro Juan Caballero.
Servián’s murder comes at the same time as the detention of Wilmar “Neneco” Acosta, the suspected mastermind behind the October 2014 assassination of journalist Pablo Medina and his assistant Antonia Almada in Canindeyú. Their deaths are still unsolved, and protests and demonstrations continue calling for justice.
The Paraguayan Journalists’ Union (SPP in Spanish) stands with the Servián family, and, as in the cases of all the other 17 journalists killed in the past 24 years, will continue calling for justice.
