Mabel Cáceres

Mabel Cáceres was already an experienced journalist when she launched the weekly El Buho (The Owl) in Arequipa, Peru’s second largest city, in 2000. The stories she covers in detail include endemic corruption, illicit enrichment and the reconstruction of a regional “Fujimorist” apparatus (by the allies of former President Alberto Fujimori, who was sentenced in 2009 to 25 years in prison for murder, drug trafficking and other crimes). She has been the target of no fewer than 13 lawsuits in the past two years, which must be a record in Latin America. In spite of the protection provided by a Peruvian NGO, she keeps receiving frequent death threats.