Miami (December 15, 2009)–The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) today urged Brazil’s Federal Supreme Court to review its decision that resulted in the ongoing censorship of investigative reports that might expose wrongdoing in the Federal Senate. The organization stated that “transparency and the distribution of information of public interest are indispensable to strengthen press freedom and democracy.”
On December 10th Brazil’s highest court dismissed an appeal by the São Paulo newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo, thus upholding the July 31st order by a federal court in Brasília that banned reporting the newspaper's legally-obtained information on Federal Police investigations into alleged corruption involving businessman Fernando Sarney, son of federal senator and former Brazilian president José Sarney. The censorship order was valid only for O Estado de S.Paulo.
Regrettably, the Superior Tribunal Federal (STF), Brazil's highest court, limited its decision to technicalities rather than to a consideration of the merit of the censorship imposed on O Estado de S.Paulo when it argued that the Brasilia District Court decision was based on the Telephone Wiretap Law, not on the argument behind the STF's April ruling that the Press Law was unconstitutional.
The matter became a major issue when it became known that the judge who issued the original gag order, Dácio Vieira, may have a conflict of interests due to his past work as a Senate adviser and personal friendship with the Sarney family. On September 15th O Estado de S. Paulo won a case removing the judge but two weeks later the same court declared itself without authority so the gag order remained in force. These facts along with the entire process have been criticized by the IAPA in press releases and in its report on the state of the Brazilian press approved at its General Assembly in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in early November.
IAPA President Alejandro Aguirre, managing editor of the Miami, Florida, Spanish-language newspaper Diario Las Américas, signaled his regret that “the Brazilian justice system continues its tradition of ordering prior censorship when, in fact, what is needed in cases of public interest such as this is to encourage the dissemination of news reports which by their very nature could have an effect on public affairs and therefore on all citizens.”
Robert Rivard, chairman of the IAPA’s Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information, editor of the San Antonio Express-News, Texas, added, “We regret the decision of Brazil’s highest court and we issue a call for its reconsideration so that Brazilian people may regain their right to be informed without censorship.”
Aguirre and Rivard coincided that the Federal High Court should back up its conviction that transparency is the best antidote to corruption and the best means of strengthening democracy, rather than issue orders that breach international standards of freedom of expression.
