Paraguay’s Public Prosecutor’s Office requested immediate increased security for journalist César Candia and his family after his car was set on fire in the early hours of Friday outside the family home in Yasy Cañy, in the department of Canindeyú. Separately, police said security measures were already in operation.
Security camera footage shows a person with their face covered approaching the vehicle, spreading a liquid that appears to be flammable, setting the car on fire and fleeing. Candia, a correspondent for broadcasters SNT and C9N and administrator of the Noticias al Día news website, described the incident as an attack on him and his family. The perpetrator and motive remain unknown.
Prosecutor Néstor Narváez, of Criminal Unit No. 2 of the Curuguaty Regional Prosecutor’s Office, a local branch of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, was assigned to lead the investigation. He visited the scene with police officers and forensic experts to collect evidence. The Public Prosecutor’s Office representative formally requested increased security from the region’s police chief.
In an interview with ABC Color, Canindeyú Police Director Commissioner Ramón Escobar said Candia’s security detail was already operational and that the police were working with the Public Prosecutor’s Office to identify those who carried out and ordered the attack. Escobar said the investigation does not yet allow authorities to point to political groups or specific individuals. He also noted similarities with the case of Pablo Medina, a journalist murdered in the same region in 2014.
The Paraguayan Journalists’ Union (SPP) called for an “urgent, serious and effective” investigation, protection for Candia and his family, and guarantees that he can continue working. In June 2025, the Paraguayan Society of Communicators reported death threats against the journalist and called for protection and an investigation; it has not yet been confirmed that the threats were connected to the fire.
The incident comes amid renewed debate in Congress over protecting journalists and human rights defenders. In 2026, the Senate Human Rights Committee convened a technical working group to consider two bills on the issue. Representatives of the SPP and the Coordinadora de Derechos Humanos del Paraguay (Codehupy), a coalition of human rights organizations, criticized a proposal backed by the governing party that would create a protection body within the Ministry of the Interior. In their view, placing journalist security under the ministry could open the door to selective decisions and compromise press independence.
The protection proposal began to be drafted in 2019 and was formally presented on April 26, 2023. By October 2025, it had received five favorable opinions from Senate committees; at the end of that year, the upper house postponed debate. The discussion also involves a December 2022 ruling by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, which held the Paraguayan state responsible in the case of Santiago Leguizamón and ordered it to create a law protecting journalists and human rights defenders.
Medina and his assistant, Antonia Almada, were murdered on October 16, 2014, in Villa Ygatimí, also in Canindeyú. Investigators identified the then-mayor of Ypejhú, Vilmar “Neneco” Acosta Marques, as the person who ordered the killing; he was convicted in Paraguay, but the available information does not specify the sentence.