Two Brazilian journalists investigating paramilitaries in this city's sprawling slums say they were kidnapped and tortured by armed men who identified themselves as police, their newspaper reported Sunday.
A reporter and photographer for O Dia were abducted with their driver May 14 and held for nearly eight hours in the western Rio de Janeiro shantytown where they had been working undercover, the newspaper said.
They said they were taken to a «private prison» and beaten, given electric shocks and had plastic bags placed over their heads. O Dia reported that the journalists did not suffer lasting injuries and were released with orders not to identify their captors.
Calls to Rio de Janeiro police were not immediately returned Sunday. Rio state security chief Jose Mariano Beltrame told O Globo newspaper he is aware of the incident and authorities are investigating.
O Dia said it contacted state security officials immediately after the incident, but did not report it until now to avoid harming the investigation.
Aziz Filho, secretary-general of the local journalists union, called it a «barbarous crime» and an attack on freedom of the press and on democracy.
Militias have increasingly moved into poor Rio de Janeiro neighborhoods in the past year and control about 90 of the city's 600 slums, officials say.
The groups _ made up of active and former police officers, private security guards and off-duty prison guards and firefighters _ charge residents US$7 to US$14 a month for protection against drug gangs.
http://www.pr-inside.com/brazil-journalists-investigating-rio-r618702.htm
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