On the night of May 14, 2008, a reporting team from O Dia, one of
But the journalists soon found themselves part of the story. Their captors, including men who were obviously police, beat the reporters and subjected them to electric shocks. The torture sessions were punctuated with a harsh interrogation about the journalists’ backgrounds and sources. As far as their captors were concerned, it was the journalists who were guilty of threatening law and order. As O Dia editor Ana Miguez recounted, one of the torturers complained, “We kill ourselves working here, we get shot at by bums so that you can come here and ruin our social project. We aren’t bandits.”
Maybe not. But that is small comfort to the people of
The journalists were released by the milícianos with a warning that they would be killed if they ever publicized what happened to them. Two weeks later, the article was published, sparking a genuine effort to curb the groups’ power. Until then, the gangs had been assured of benign neglect from