Dissident Spotlight: Rodrigo Neto de Faria
Rodrigo Neto de Faria was murdered by the police officers he was investigating for other murders they were suspected in.
A 2013 Human Rights report from the U.S. State Department outlined the ongoing problem Brazil has with extrajudicial police killings. The report cited 263 civilians killed for resisting arrest in Rio de Janeiro from January to July in 2012. The following March, Rodrigo Neto de Faria was among the police’s victims.
On March 8, 2013, Neto de Faria was found dead outside of his home in Ipatinga, a city in Minas Gerais, the state bordering Rio de Janeiro to the north.
Neto de Faria was a crime reporter who was investigating a group of police officers allegedly involved in organized crime. He had reported death threats he was receiving to the local police. That didn’t stop two unidentified men on motorcycles from shooting him on his doorstep.
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, Neto de Faria was one of four journalists murdered in Brazil in 2013. PEN America notes that while Neto de Faria’s killer and the person who hired him were imprisoned, “no mastermind has been charged.”
Repressed Journalists in Brazil
Neto de Faria’s murder sent shockwaves through the country’s police departments. Legal expert, Délio Gandra, said in an interview with Diario de Caratinga that after Neto de Faria’s murder:
“People could no longer stand the crimes committed by agents who were obliged to prevent crime, civil and military police officers, who executed people summarily, without trials. And so much so that, in the Rodrigo Neto case, several of those involved in the executions were investigated, denounced, removed from their positions and are being prosecuted, as had never happened before.”
Gandra gave that quote in an article commemorating the two-year anniversary of Neta de Faria’s murder. By then, one of the men responsible for the killing was in prison, and the second was set to stand trial.
The legacy of this killing is mixed. The last year that the Committee to Protect Journalists recorded a murdered journalist in Brazil was 2022.
However, in October 2023, a judge ruled that journalists could be held responsible for interviewees who accused third parties of crimes. This new level of liability makes it harder for journalists to do their jobs and makes it much easier for the country’s courts and rulers to stifle unflattering coverage.
Brazil has made some progress in protecting its journalists, but the fight continues to ensure the safety of free expression and maintain a vital check on Brazil’s most powerful figures.