Second Journalist Killed in City Near Rio de Janeiro

By Newsfeed

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The director of a news site in Maricá, in the metropolitan region of Rio de Janeiro, was killed on June 18th. Romário da Silva Barros, 31, was inside his car when he was shot three times, according to G1. He is the second journalist killed there in less than a month.

He was the founder of Lei Seca Maricá (LSM), a site dedicated to covering the daily life of the city of 153,000 inhabitants, located 37 miles from Rio de Janeiro. According to the police, as reported by the newspaper O Dia, the journalist’s murder may have been a hit killing.

Rio’s civil police said Wednesday that they are investigating who killed the 31-year-old Romario da Silva Barros and for what motive.

Previously, on May 25th, Robson Giorno, owner of the online newspaper O Maricá, was shot dead in front of his house.

Unknown individuals knocked on the door of Giorno’s home in Maricá and lured him into the street, where individuals in a car shot him six times, according to news reports. He died at the scene, according to those reports.

Police already know that two men participated in the execution of Silva Barros. Images from surveillance cameras show the two approaching the vehicle where the journalist was sitting, O Dia reported.

Maricá’s mayoralty office described the crime as an “attack on freedom of expression”. Mayor Fabiano Horta said that “it is unacceptable that in less than a month, the city has seen the second death of a journalist.”

The Maricá City Council decreed official mourning for three days in the city, in honor of the journalist’s memory. Councilman Richard Alter Seal called the murder “a crime of hatred and curtailment of freedom of the press.”