Brazil: Was the shooting of Ricardo Gama politically motivated? · Global Voices
Raphael Tsavkko Garcia

The Brazilian blogger Ricardo Gama, “forceful critic” [pt] of the Governor of Rio de Janeiro state, Sergio Cabral Filho, and the Mayor of the city, Eduardo Paes, as well as “one of the most favorite activists of the blogosphere” [pt] on what concerns abuse of power and other irregularities by the police in Brazil, was shot on Wednesday, March 24.
Marcelo Delfino, from the blog Brasil, um País de Tolos (Brazil, a Fool's Country) reported [pt] the crime:
Ricardo Gama […] foi baleado hoje de  manhã em Copacabana. Levou dois tiros no rosto e um no tórax, disparados  por um homem que o abordou em um carro prata.
A “politically incorrect” blog archive
A controversial blogger, Gama is known for shooting videos with denunciations of the Government and posting them in his blog [pt], gaining admirers and enemies wherever he goes. A few hours before the attack, Gama published two posts criticizing the governors of Rio de Janeiro – “his favorite targets”, as blogger Antônio Mello comments – for the new procedures for disclosure of data about dengue in the city [pt] and for the imprisonment of political activists [pt] during Obama's visit to Brazil (reported by Global Voices).
This is not the first time that Gama has suffered an attack, says [pt] Conceição Oliveira, from the blog Maria Frô:
Ricardo  Gama é aquele blogueiro que ficou famoso por exibir durante a campanha  eleitoral um vídeo em que um adolescente negro cobrava o governador  Sérgio Cabral e era destratado por este.
Em  fevereiro durante a ocupação do Complexo do Alemão o Carro do blogueiro  Ricardo Gama já tinha sido alvejado como ele denuncia aqui.
Ricardo Gama is that blogger who became famous for showing a video during electoral campaign where a black teenager was holding  Governor Sérgio Cabral to task and was insulted by [the Governor].
In February, during the [military] occupation of the Complexo do Alemão [a slum settlement in the north area of Rio de Janeiro] Ricardo Gama's car was shot at as he reveals here.
Concerning this particular attack and its investigation, journalist Antônio Mello shares some troubling information [pt]:
A   polícia ainda não tem pista alguma sobre o autor dos  disparos. Testemunhas afirmam que ele chamou Ricardo pelo nome e este,  quando se virou para ver quem o chamava, foi atingido pelos tiros. Ao  cair, sempre  segundo testemunhas, Ricardo teria repetido algumas vezes “queima de  arquivo, queima de arquivo”.
[…]
Há pouco tempo teve um bate-boca com um policial da Delegacia de Copacabana, por causa do registro de uma ocorrência que o delegado se recusou a fazer. Nome do delegado: Bruno Giladerte, o mesmo que investiga agora  o atentado.
The police doesn't have a clue yet about the shooter. Witnesses say that [the shooter] called Ricardo by name, and he was hit by gunfire as he turned to see who called him. While he was falling, still according to witnesses, Ricardo repeated a few times “file burning, file burning”.
Not long ago he had a quarrel with a police officer from the Copacabana bureau, due to a police report the officer refused to write. Name of the officer: Bruno Gilardete, the same person who now investigates the attack.
While Rio de Janeiro's police works within this context on the claim that Gama's texts may have been the motive for the crime [pt], the blogosphere started wondering about the reasons for the attack.
The writer José Fonte de Santa Ana comments [pt]:
A probabilidade de motivação política paira no ar porque   Ricardo Gama  fazia inúmeras denúncias sobre os descasos da   administração pública (…).
Fernando Peregrino, a former candidate to Rio de Janeiro's government asks [pt] if Gama would have raised political intolerance with his online advocacy:
Que Ricardo Gama é um militante social criativo e audacioso ninguém tem  duvida. Mas será que ele despertou a intolerância política em nossa  terra? […] e o uso de  métodos criminosos para resolver divergências políticas. Ricardo exercia  uma função jornalística destacada, então por que as instituições do  setor não consideram um Atentado à liberdade de Imprensa? Ou elas só  gritam para defender a liberdade de Empresa, e não de Imprensa como um  todo. Será um recado? Podemos todos dormir tranqüilos de que as  instituições de defesa da democracia estão em boas mãos?
The taxi driver and blogger Jorge Schweitzer prefers not to believe [pt] that the crime may have had political motivations:
Descreio  que a  falta de inteligência ou motivação por ódio pelo  blogueiro  tenha levado  algum político a tramar eliminar Ricardo  Gama…Seria  muita burrice…
The blogger Ricardo Gama, printscreen from a video posted by him in the web.
On the day of the attack, Paulo Ricardo Paúl, a professor, colonel and the former Mayor of the Military Police of Rio de Janeiro, and also a friend of Ricardo Gama, vented [pt] via Twitter that the “Rio's independent media has suffered an assassination attempt”. Paúl believes [pt] that the crime's “early signs [pointed] an attempt of execution” and he does not discard the possibility of an attack with a political connotation:
É muito cedo para falar em atentado com  conotação política, uma hipótese que não pode ser desprezada, em face de  Ricardo Gama criticar e denunciar diariamente os governos federal,  assim como, o estadual e o municipal do Rio de Janeiro.
Blogosphere Solidarity
For some bloggers, such as Bruno Kazuhiro, from the blog Perspectiva (Perspective), the crime was [pt] “clearly an attack on freedom of speech”.
A few hours after the attack, on Twitter João Carlos Caribé (@caribe) showed [pt] his solidarity:
A blogosfera precisa entender que somos todos Ricardo Gama, estamos todos sujeitos ao mesmo que ele, ou você tem duvida?
"Dont touch the bloggers". A video of the protest on March 30 by coronelprpaulo on Youtube
On the following day, March 25, Fernando Peregrino announced the creation of the movement “Don't touch the bloggers” [pt], aiming to gather “everyone who maintains or reads blogs and now feels affected with the attempt of silencing one of us, the blogger Ricardo Gama!”. The movement had its first “civic-democratic act” one week after the attack, on March 30, despite the restrictions [pt] by Governor Sérgio Cabral.
On the following day, the 31st, Ricardo Gama was discharged from the Hospital Copa D'or where he was hospitalized recovering from surgery. From the hospital he had given an interview [pt] to a national newspaper promising he would start blogging again. Since the 31st of March, the blogger has been publishing almost daily still with visible wounds, and he keeps the promise [pt]:
No mais esse blog em nada mudará, e vamos em frente.
Reporters Without Borders issued a statement demanding “a steady and deep investigation about the attack”. Meanwhile developments in the police investigation are awaited to determine whether this was “one more case of suffering and persecution of bloggers and journalists with sharp critical sense” as AF from the blog Mingau de Aço (Steel porridge) points out [pt].