Journalist’s wife shot dead defending him inside radio station

Reporters Without Borders is dismayed to learn that Peruvian journalist Gerson Fabián Cuba’s wife, Gloria Limas Calle, was shot dead on 17 October when she tried to protect him from two gunmen inside the radio station in Pichanaki, in the central department of Junín, where he hosts a programme. After entering Radio Rumba on the pretext that they wanted to place an advertisement, the two men began to hit Fabián. When Limas, who happened to be there, intervened in an attempt to defend him, they shot her and fled. She died while being taken to hospital. Fabián told the Press and Society Institute (IPYS), a Peruvian free speech NGO, that he did not know why the two men attacked him but noted that he had recently criticized protests against the multinational Pluspetrol and had covered corruption allegations involving a candidate for mayor. He asked the authorities to protect him and his son. “We urge those investigating this murder not to rule out the possibility of a link to Fabián’s work as a journalist and we urge the authorities to provide him and his son with protection,” Reporters Without Borders deputy programme director Virginie Dangles said. “The government must not shut its eyes to the reality of the permanent danger to which journalists are exposed in Peru.” In a separate development, a journalist in Huancayo, in the same department, said he was the target of an attack on 13 September. Santos Porras, the editor of he weekly Quién, said two men intercepted him, took him to an isolated location, threatened him and then threw him into a river. Meanwhile the investigation seems to have ground to a halt in the murder of Donny Buchelli, a journalist whose body was discovered inside his home in the northwestern province of Pacasmayo three and a half months ago with the hands and feet bound and bearing the marks of torture. Peru is ranked 104th out of 180 countries in the 2014 Reporters Without Borders press freedom index.