From Reuters News Service via the Houston Chronicle
BELEM, Brazil -- A 74-year-old American nun was shot to death early today in Brazil's Amazon rain forest where she worked to defend human rights and the environment despite frequent death threats, federal police said.
Unknown assailants shot U.S. missionary, Dorothy Stang at point-blank range at an isolated agricultural settlement in dense jungle 50 kms (31 miles) from the town of Anapu in the state of Para, police and fellow religious workers said.
"It was three shots at point-blank range," said sister Betsy Flynn of Stang's order the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur. "She received so many threats, I never thought it would happen."
Stang had worked in the area around a decade defending the rights of landless peasants and small farmers and promoting sustainable use of the rain forest, according to the Brazilian Order of Lawyers (OAB), a national lawyers' association.
She recently won a human rights award from the OAB for reporting abuses by land speculators, illegal loggers and large landowners in the area.
Only weeks ago she warned federal human rights authorities she faced continual death threats for her work. She was on an OAB list of people who faced possible assassination.
"This death is just more encouragement to continue her work to confront the people who are destroying the forest," said Meire Cohen of the OAB.
Brazilian media earlier reported Stang's age as 73.
