BRAZIL

Aa
$.-
There is concern about the occurrence, in Brazil, of isolated initiatives that harm press freedom with threats, attacks, abuse and crimes commited against journalists and the media. The Brazilian press faces repeated threats to commercial freedom of expression represented by the efforts of a regulatory agency, Anvisa, to legislate advertising content through administrative rulings that ignore the Brazilian Constitution. There have been repeated court decisions that prevent the disclosure of journalistic work, representing prior restraint. There are also bills restricting press freedom. Another potential problem is the federal government’s decision to establish a public television station which, with taxpayer money and under the pretense of accomodating plural and diverse information sources and opinions, could become a vehicle for political, and eventually electoral, advertising for the government. This TV station is in the implementation stage. It is also worth noting that communication companies pay attention to the need to consolidate their codes of journalistic ethics and conduct and turn them into a democratic instrument for self-regulation. Following are the most recent attempts to restrict freedom of expression: On April 25, a team from TV Record, from Belém do Pará, was attacked by federal policeman Alessandro Dantas de Oliveira. The team – consisting of reporter Célia Pinho, photojournalist Edílson Matos and driver Marcelo Silva – was reporting on a charge against the federal policeman who had been accused of killing an assailant in front of the high school Grão Pará, in the capital of Pará, the day before. The policeman also damaged the journalists’ equipment. On April 25, the reporter José Diniz Júnior, owner of the tabloid Matéria Prima, from Taubaté, in Vale do Paraíba, was arrested improperly or a conviction based on the Press Law after the statute of limitations had run out. Diniz was not released until May 10. The charge was filed in 2004 by Police Chief José Luiz Miglioli because of an article published in Diniz’s newspaper. The police chief had said that he considered a text signed by the president of the city country club to be offensive but the president said that he was not the author of the text. Based on the Press Law, the police chief charged the reporter, who was sentenced to 74 days in jail. The statute of limitations under the Press Law is two years. Diniz was summoned and arrested two years and four months after the sentence. After appealing in Court, Diniz was released, but has decided to sue the State of São Paulo for pain and suffering and property damage. On May 5 around 9 p.m., reporter Luiz Carlos Barbon Filho was killed in Porto Ferreira, in the state of São Paulo. Since 2003, he had been reporting on a scheme for solicitation of minors in the region. There are indications that Luiz Carlos was killed because of the journalistic work he was doing for Jornal do Porto, JC Regional and Rádio Porto FM, all in the city of Porto Ferreira. Barbon was shot twice with a 12-caliber rifle in a bar in front of the city bus station. He was taken alive to the County Emergency Room but did not survive. The case is being investigated by local police. On June 15 Judge Ana Lúcia Xavier Goldman, from the 1st Civil Court of Jundiaí, São Paulo, blocked the publication of an interview in the newspaper Folha de Vinhedo that reported irregularities allegedly committed by businessmen and executive and judicial officials of the city. The judge’s decision said the articles would “harm the credibility of the judiciary and Public Prosecutor’s Office of Vinhedo”. On June 20, Judge Silvia Lúcia Bonifácio de Andrade Carvalho, of the 2nd Civil Court of Salvador, Bahia, prevented the magazine Metrópole and all associated enterprises of the group A Metrópole – radio, Web site and blogs – from releasing any “explicit or implicit reference to the name, honor, character, intimacy, private life and image” of Mayor João Henrique Carneiro. The judge imposed a fine of R$ 2,000 in the event of failure to comply with the decision and ordered out of circulation all issues of the magazine where the article “The City in the Hole – Salvador Drowns in Debt, Trash and Mess”, criticizing the county administration. On August 6, Senator Renan Calheiros encouraged the creation of a CPI (parliamentary investigative commission) aimed a Grupo Abril, in a clear threat to the credibility of the National Congress and the freedom of press. This CPI attempts to turn a business operation – approved in July by Anatel after nine months of review - into a political scandal and intimidate the press agencies, for whom the duty to inform independently is a sacred commandment. This parliamentary initiative was initiated by Renan, who has been accused by the press in general of several corruption and unlawful enrichment offenses. And Grupo Abril was chosen by the senator from Alagoas as a scapegoat in his campaign against the media because it was the magazine Veja that reported the strongest information about his unethical behavior. Last August, Renan even asked in a plenary session that the Department of Communications and the Agência Nacional de Telecomunicações (Anatel) suspend a meeting of this agency’s board of directors. According to the senator, the purpose of this meeting would be to put a “patch” on the transaction in which Grupo Abril transfers to the Spanish company Telefônica the control of a Brazilian cable TV operator. This pressure by the president of the Senate led Anatel to postpone the review of the corporate changes involving TVA’s purchase by Telefônica. On August 15 the Securities Commission, a federal government agency with oversight responsibility for the financial market, released a draft public notice to regulate the activity of security analysts that would indirectly affect the work of journalists who cover the financial market. The proposal, announced for public comment, would result, in practice, in the regulation of these journalists’ work, attempting to determine how their work is published.

Share

0