Vale do Aço

4. Steps That Work and Those That Don’t

On May 3, 2011, CPJ representatives traveled to Pakistan to raise concerns about the increasing attacks against journalists there and the country’s high rate of impunity. It was a moment of drama: The previous day, American forces had killed Osama bin Laden in nearby Abbottabad. But Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari kept his commitment and met CPJ to discuss the growing number of Pakistani journalists murdered because of their work, and the absence of prosecution against the assailants.

By Sara Rafsky/CPJ Americas Research Associate

One month after their colleague Rodrigo Neto was gunned down on the street after eating at a popular outdoor barbecue restaurant, the journalists of Vale do Aço, Brazil, were indignant. Denouncing a sluggish investigation and the possibility of police involvement in the murder, they strapped black bands to their wrists in a sign of solidarity, put on T-shirts bearing Neto's name, and took to the streets to demand justice. Six days later, Walgney Assis Carvalho, a photographer who claimed to have knowledge of the crime, was shot twice in the back by a masked assassin as he sat at a fish restaurant. The journalists of Vale do Aço are still indignant, but now they are terrified.

New York, April 15, 2013--Brazilian authorities must bring to justice the assailants involved in the murder of a crime photographer on Sunday night, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. Walgney Assis Carvalho was a freelance photographer who contributed to the daily Vale do Aço in the southeastern state of Minas Gerais.

New York, March 8, 2013--Brazilian authorities must immediately investigate today's murder of a journalist and bring the perpetrators to justice, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.