A Staccato of Bad News From Latin America

Latin America can be a source of remarkable press freedom victories, as we have recently reported here and here.

But that region can also generate very disturbing instances of press freedom repression.

Here are three of them:

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) reports that radio-station-owner and host José Givonaldo Vieira was shot dead in the Pernambuco State town of Bezerros, in Northeastern Brazil, by unidentified gunmen who intercepted the victim's car in a light-colored compact vehicle.

Witnesses reported that one of the assailants got out of his car and shot Vieira four times.

CPJ also reports that a group of unidentified gunmen shot and killed TV host Hárold Humberto Rivas Quevedo in the town of Buga, in the Valle del Cauca Province.

According to initial investigations, there seems to be no clear motives for the brutal killings of either Vieira or Rivas Quevedo.

Their murderers, we guess, would just want us to forget about it and move on to the next brutal silencing of a journalist.

And Instituto Prensa y Sociedad (IPYS) reports that in the Venezuelan State of Barinas, federal troops entered the offices of newspaper De Frente to investigate its ownership.

The search lasted for three days, with armed National Guard troopers watching the paper's activities as writers and reporters went about their business.

What were armed troopers in full combat regalia doing manning the operations of a newspaper?

Were it up to all the goons, murderers and bullies, press freedom and freedom of expression would be declared null and void in most of the planet.

Were it not for all the press freedom heroes who defy this outrage, we all might as well be subscribed to Pravda.