The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) expressed outrage at the murder in Brazil of businessman and radio journalist José Givonaldo Vieira on December 14 in Bezerros, located in rural Pernambuco state.

Vieira was director of Rádio Bezerros FM, operated by the newspaper Folha do Agreste and a producer of cultural programs locally. It is believed that the crime may be connected to claims he made on his radio program.

Two persons shot Vieira, 40, at least three times as he arrived at the radio station. Officials assigned four police officers to the murder investigation that have so far produced no results.

IAPA President Alejandro Aguirre, managing editor of the Miami, Florida, Spanish-language newspaper Diario Las Américas, offered sympathy to Vieira’s family and colleagues while warning “it is critical that this crime be solved rapidly in order to discover the motives behind it and to identify and punish the perpetrators and masterminds responsible.”

Robert Rivard, Chairman of the IAPA’s Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information and editor of the San Antonio Express-News, Texas, appealed to the Brazilian government and Congress “to set up the proper tools to combat violence against reporters” and called on the Federal Police to work effectively to solve these murders.

Honduras

In Honduras, the teenage daughter of television journalist Karol Cabrera was murdered in an attack that was believed aimed at her mother who had filed formal complaints stating she received threats. The daughter, 16-year-old Katherine Nicolle Rodríguez Cabrera, eight months pregnant, died from multiple gunshot wounds.

On December 15 the daughter was driving at night in the Honduran capital, Tegucigalpa, when bikers approached the driver’s side and fired several shots. She died shortly afterwards in hospital. Doctors were able to save her baby who remains in critical condition.

According to local media, Cabrera, a supporter of the Roberto Micheletti government, hosts news and commentary programs on the privately-owned Canal 54 and state-run Canal 8 television stations and on the privately-owned radio station Radio Cadena Voces in Tegucigalpa.

IAPA officers urged the authorities to carry out a swift investigation to determine who was responsible for the killing and whether it was linked to the victim’s mother’s work as a journalist.

El Salvador

The IAPA meanwhile welcomed progress made in the investigation into the September murder of Franco-Spanish photographer and documentary maker Christian Poveda after officials announced the arrest of an additional 10 gang members. They and five others arrested earlier are held as suspects in the murder.

Povedo filmed the documentary “La vida loca” (The Mad Life) about the life of the Mara 18 gangs in El Salvador. He was killed on September 2, allegedly by members of the same gang who believed he was a police informant, an accusation denied by authorities.