The wife of a journalist in Chanchamayo province was shot dead last Friday by two young men who then fled on a black motorcycle. Gloria Lima, 38, was in the Rumba radio station in Perené with her young son when the youths entered the studio while her husband, Gerson Fabian, was getting ready to broadcast his 7 am news program.
Fabian told the National Association of Journalists that he had been threatened a month ago by Alfredo Torres, who was campaigning for mayor of the district of Pichanaki, a burgeoning town of loggers and farmers as well as illegal coca crops. He said that the bike that the attackers used was similar to one used by Torres during his election campaign.
Fabian has asked for police protection, because both he and his son clearly saw the faces of the hired killers.
Several journalists, many of them with their own radio programs, have been threatened or killed over the past decade in provinces where political corruption or illegal businesses are rife.
