Brazil

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During the period covered by this report, the increase in the number of murders of journalists while carrying out their work is reason for great alarm. It is for this reason that the murder on October 4, 2012, of the owner of the Jornal da Praça of Ponta Porã (MS), Luiz Henrique Georges, was not included in this report. Georges, who was executed with some thirty shorts from a shotgun, was the nehew of entrepreneur Fahd Jamil Georges, accused of being an organized-crime boss involved in drug trafficking in the border region. Up to the writing of this report, there have been no sure indications that the case is related to his journalistic activity and, therfore, that it should be considered an attack on freedom of expression. This report also highlights the recurrence of legal decisions that prohibit the dissemination of information by the media. Prior censorship through legal channels—an affront to the greater principle of freedom of expression as defined by the Constitution—applied in general by lower-court judges, historically rises during months of electoral campaigns; in the same way, the amount of aggression shown toward journalists also rises, especially on the eve of elections. Murders during the period On July 5, 2012, journalist Valério Luiz was murdered as he left work at Rádio Jornal (820 AM) in Goiânia. According to the Military Police, he was in his car when he was approached by a motorcycle rider and hit by six shots. A witness gave a statement on site and affirmed that a cyclist was stopped at the door of the station a few minutes before the broadcaster came out. The news director of Rádio Jornal, Cassim Zaidem, said that he knew of no threats against Valério, but he believed it was an execution. A few minutes after the murder, Valério’s father, Mané de Oliveira, who is a sports commentator, appeared at the scene of the crime. On April 23, 2012, journalist and blogger Décio Sá was murdered with six closely-fired shots in a restaurant on Avenida Litorânea in São Luís (MA), around 10:30 pm. According to information from the State Military Police, Décio Sá was dining alone in the restaurant when a man approached him and shot six times, placing four bullets in his head and two in his back. He died at the scene. The murderer fled in company of another person who was waiting for him across the street on a motorcycle. Décio Sá worked for the newspaper O Estado do Maranhão which belongs to the family of ex-President and current Senate President José Sarney. He wrote blogs covering the back rooms of Maranhão politics. On June 5, Jhonatan de Sousa Silva, 24, was arrested by the police as he was returning to São Luís (MA) to receive the rest of the money that he had been promised for the execution of Décio, around R$ 80,000. According to information from Décio’s blog, Jhonatan told investigators that, in case he did not receive the money, he would kill loan shark Júnior Bolinha, the mastermind of the execution. According to police, the motives of the crime were the revelations that the journalist had made about loan sharking, skimming of public funds, and extortions. On June 21, State Deputy of Maranhão, Raimundo Cutrim (PSD-MA), former secretary of Public Safety of the State of Maranhão and member of the allied base of the government of the state in the legislative assembly, was mentioned in Jhonatan’s statements. The deputy was cited as the person who had ordered the murder of the journalist, in a statement made by the man who performed the crime, the content of which was disseminated over the Internet on June 21, according to the Estado agency. Acts of aggression against journalists On October 7, 2012, journalist Rosinaldo Vieira was attacked by supporters of a councilman reelected to the city council of Natal, Aquino Neto. The journalist says that he was accompanied by his father, 81 years old, when he was approached and insulted. According to Vieira, the encounter occurred around 12:30 am on Rua Serra do Caturité, in the Pitimbu neighborhood. The journalist was delivering copies of a community newspaper of the satellite city. One of the cover stories in the monthly paper concerned councilmen running for reelection who were involved in Operation Impacto (an operation conducted by the Prosecutor’s Office, Federal Police, Civil Police, and Military Police to fight gambling and trafficking in drugs and arms). On October 7, 2012, a journalist with Correio Mariliense, Félix Naveda, was violently attacked by five persons as he was covering a political demonstration for candidate Ticiano Tóffoli (PT) in the Fragata neighborhood in the center of Marília (SP). He received kicks and hits while he was trying to document a fight among canvassers. Naveda was close to the fight when he pulled out his cellular phone to record the scenes of violence. Realizing that they were being caught, some five individuals wearing red PT tee shirts stopped fighting the workers of the PSB and attacked the journalist. On October 7, 2012, reporter Natália Oliver of the Diário de Guarulhos was attacked as she caught the director of Procon of Guarulhos, José Wilson, outside a polling place canvassing for votes for the current chairman of the chamber and candidate for reelection for the PSD, Eduardo Soltur. The practice is a crime, according to election law. On October 5, 2012, photo reporter Moacyr Lopes Junior of the Folha de S. Paulo was the victim of aggression on the part of a militant worker of the PT during a walk by mayoral candidate Fernando Haddad on the afternoon of that Friday, in the center of São Paulo. On Rua 7 de Abril, the journalist tripped and fell next to a campaign worker. As he got up he was held by the neck and received a "tie” or squeeze to the neck as he was trying to retrieve his professional equipment. The candidate expressed solidarity with the reporter when he heard of the incident. On September 17, 2012, journalist Luís Schwelm of TV Record News was attacked with an iron rod during his coverage of a rally in Maranhão. Schwelm was taken to the hospital with suspicion of cranial trauma, and even while hospitalized he was threatened by the coordinator of the electoral campaign of the mayoral candidate of Estreito (MA), Verbena Macedo (PDT). The matter was reported to the police. The announcer and stage host of the candidate, known as “Pinto,” instigated the violence when he saw a reporting team filming the event. On September 16, 2012, reporter Wal Alencar of the Monolitos System was attacked as he was covering a supposed political event at the public school in Quixadá (CE). Alencar says that he received severe blows and kicks from the leader of the campaign for mayoral candidate Ilário Marques (PT). The act of aggression against the reporter, 28 years old, was filmed by the cameras of the virtual channel that he works for and posted on the Internet. On September 10, 2012 reporter Talita Aquino and the director of Portal Minas Livre, Júlio Cesar, ware assaulted and threatened by security guards of a candidate for mayor of Padre Eustáquio (MG), Márcio Lacerda. Eight guards from the committee surrounded the two professionals, pushing and kicking them. On September 17, 2012, radio reporter Carlos Roberto Silva Barboza, better known as Carlão, received an assault to his neck with a broken bottle. Carlão is the reporter and host of the program Galera Gol, on station Transamérica. The cowardly attack came from behind him on Rua Bahia, in front of the event space that he was inaugurating on that day. On September 1, 2012, journalist Rubens Coutinho, owner of the website Tudo Rondônia, was attacked by physician and Jiu-Jitsu fighter Sérgio Paulo de Melo Mender Filho. The motive for the attack was probably a report by the journalist on the outburst of the doctor that led to his removal from the post of director of the hospital John Paul II. The attack consisted in being hit with a bottle and receiving various kicks. On September 1, 2012, the director of the newspaper O Jornal of Guaíra (SP), Menize Taniguti, was beaten and robbed of the newspapers that were to be distributed over the weekend. The journalist explained that the suspects were in two cars and they surrounded her on the highway ordering her to stop on the shoulder. One of the men, who was armed, assumed command and ordered the journalist to take a pill. The gang took Menize to a sugarcane field and made her get down on her knees. The journalist remained in that position while the suspects collected the newspapers from her trunk and placed them in another vehicle. Menize stated that throughout the event she suffered from acts of aggression and threats. On August 30, 2012, the car used by the reporting team from TV Aratu, an affiliate of the SBT network, was hit with three shots while the professionals were doing a report on a bus that had been burned the day before in Pirajá on the outskirts of Salvador, Bahia. On August 24, 2012, journalist Mário Bittencort was assaulted in the airport of Porto Seguro in southern Bahia state, while awaiting the arrival of Deputy Cláudia Oliveira (PSD). Bittencort planned to interview the candidate for mayor of the Bahian city who appears in a video saying that she would take R$ 1 billion from city hall. The journalist was wounded on his arm and had his photographic equipment damaged by supporters of the candidate while waiting for her arrival at the airport. On August 20, 2012, journalist William Gonçalves de Sousa Borges reported that he had been attacked by Vagner Teodoro de Oliveira, chairman of the city council of Lagoa da Confusão (TO). The journalist and city press aide said that he had been fulfilling a request from the mayor’s office by reporting on complaints about public health in the region. On August 8, 2012, a reporting team from TV Morena was assaulted during a report on burnings in Campo Grande, capital of the state of Mato Grosso do Sul. A cameraman was with a reporter and an assistant, recording pictures on the ring highway when he spotted a fire at the edge of the road. He was threatened and attacked by a businessman present at the location. As the team was preparing to leave after doing the recording, the man hit the cameraman with a blow. On July 24, 2012, reporter André Guilherme Delgado Vieira of Rádio Jovem Plan FM was attacked by a security guard for a mayoral candidate in the city of São Paulo, José Serra (PSDB) during a press conference. According to the reporter, almost at the end of the conference the guard, identified as Issardi, told him that the interview was over and that he should leave the area. Threats during the period July 23, 2012, a team from O GLOBO sent to Redenção (PA) to investigate cases of fraud involving the mayor’s office was threatened and coerced by the mayor and candidate for reelection, Wagner Fontes (PTB-PA). Journalist Carolina Benevides and photographer Marcelo Piu had to leave the city in the company of two federal police officers. During the interview the candidate asked the journalists to be careful with their questions and threatened, “I am telling you to have a basis for your questions, so that you can reflect on what I am going to tell you. If (someone) should speak badly of me to defame me, tomorrow or the next day you could be dead.” The threat was reported to the Federal Police in Redenção. In the document it is stated that the mayor coerced and threatened the team, having made it clear that an accident could happen or that something illegal might be found in the team’s possession. On July 14, 2012, reporter André Caramante of the newspaper Folha de São Paulo started receiving threats in Facebook postings after publishing an article critical of the ex-commander of Conspicuous Rounds, Tobias de Aguiar (ROTA). In the article “Former head of ROTA becomes a politician and preaches violence on Facebook,” the journalist stated that the ex-commander of the unit, Paulo Adriano Lopes Lucinda Telhada, uses his Facebook page to incite violence in supposed confrontations with civilians, whom he called “bums.” In one of the publications reproduced on the page maintained by Telhada, who is presently a candidate for city councilman for São Paulo, there is the sentence, “There are people who still want to defend this race of rogues and some ‘organizations’ want to defend them as victims of police injustice.” After the publication of the article, on July 14, the journalist stated that followers of the colonel’s page made comments with threats such as, “that’s right, Telhada, let’s fight those bums” and “that Caramante is one more bum.” On October 8, 2012, four month after the start of threats from the ex-commander (elected as a councilman in São Paulo on 10/7) journalist Caramante had to be removed from his job at the Folha de São Paulo because of security concerns and took refuge with his family in an undisclosed country. On September 13, 2012, radio station Farol FM, belonging to State Deputy João Henrique Caldas (PTN) had its facilities completely destroyed by two medium-sized bombs in the city of União dos Palmares in the interior of Alagoas state. The politician is known for his strong opposition to the mayor of União dos Palmares, Areski Freitas (PTB), and had been broadcasting recordings in which the voice is supposedly heard of Mayor Freitas, who is no longer a candidate, in negotiations and, in the opinion of the deputy, could contain indications of corruption. According to the police, the explosion occurred a little after 4:00 am. People called the police reporting that they had heard the sound of the explosions and, as they went out into the street, they had seen two men running from inside the building where the radio station was located and fleeing on a motorcycle, which was not identified by make or license number. Federal Deputy João Caldas, upon hearing of the occurrence, called the Federal Police into action. On August 10, 2012, a reporter-cameraman for TV Goiânia, Marco Antônio Ferreira, was arrested, accused of the crime of disobedience. The reporter was transmitting live pictures of the capsizing of a vehicle of the Shock Battalion of the Military Police of Goiás. As he approached the vehicle, Marco Antônio was arrested. He was taken to the 8th Police Precinct in the area of Pedro Ludovico where a police report (Term of Occurrence, TCO) for disobedience was written up, a crime contemplated to carry a sentence of fifteen days to six months of detention, but he was released immediately and he is not going to press charges against the military police. The reporter-photographer Diomício Gomes, of O Popular also had his work impeded by the same officers in covering the same accident. Various cases of judicial censorship recorded during the period: On October 5, Judge Naira Neila Batista de Oliveira Norte, the Coordinating Judge of Electoral Advertising in Manaus, AM, ordered that journalist Ricardo Noblat remove from his blog all photographs alluding to the senator and mayoral candidate in Manaus Vanessa Grazziotin (PC do B). The decision was related to the report of an act of aggression suffered by Grazziotin. As she was arriving for a debate among candidates in Manaus, Grazziotin was spit at. After the debate she traveled to Brasilia and gave a speech in the Senate stating the she was the victim of a thrown egg. Photographs on social networks and the testimony of a legal aide of the candidate herself denied the speech made in Congress. The journalist simply related the facts in his blog. The senator went to court with a request for right of reply to what had been posted about the false egg attack against her. The right of reply was denied by judge Alexandre Henrique Novaes de Araújo, Coordinating Judge of Electoral Advertising of the Regional Electoral Court of the Amazon. On October 6, 2012, by court order, the Jornal do Povo in Cachoeira do Sul (RS), was required to remove from its website material that reported on the investigation of the Prosecutor’s Office in reference to the purchase of votes. The text mentioned 150 fuel vouchers apprehended by the Civil Police, considered evidence of the supposed electoral crime on the part of the coalition “A Cachoeira que o Povo Quer” (The Cachoeira that the People Want) PR/PcdoB/PP and DEM). At the request of the attorneys of that coalition, the judge ordered removal of the material. In carrying out the judicial order, the JP altered the text, reporting on the prohibition without mentioning names of parties or persons involved. On September 19, 2012 assistant electoral judge Adão Joel Gomes de Carvalho de Macapá (AP) ordered a blog removed from the air by journalist João Bosco Rabello, director of the Brasilia agency of O Estado de S. Paulo, called “A Mayor under Judicial Control.” The censored post was limited to factual statements that the present mayor of the capital of Amapá, Roberto Goes (PDT) is conducting his campaign with his movements limited by a judicial order, unable to appear in public places after certain hours, nor may he leave the state without court permission. The restriction originates in the fact that Goes was arrested during a Federal Police operation that broke up a gang installed in the structure of the state government of Amapá in 2010. The judge accepted the argument presented by the mayor’s attorney, according to whom the news “serves as a reminder to the voters, especially during the election period, and has no other purpose than to sully the figure and reputation of the representative before the electorate.” Not satisfied, His Honor the Judge arrogated to himself the task of teaching journalism, stating that “The right to inform presupposes the dissemination of timely news in order to bring to the people an understanding of situations that should be publicly known, but which for some reason had not been reported.” The ANJ issued a note considering the position to be wrong-headed and in support of the newspaper’s decision to appeal. On September 22, 2012, the Prosecutor’s Office of Amapá, in an opinion sent to the Electoral Justice department, defended the revocation of the censorship imposed on the blog by assistant judge Adão Joel, and denied the right to reply solicited by the attorneys for the mayor of Macapá, Roberto Goes. On September 10, 2012 Judge Luciano Carrasco of the Regional Electoral Court of Paraná state prohibited the dissemination of a poll showing voters’ intentions, done by Datafolha. The provisional decision was made at the request of the coalition Curitiba Quer Mais , made up by the PDT, PV, and PT parties in favor of the candidacy of Gustavo Fruet for mayor. In addition to preventing publication of the poll, the judge set a fine of R$100,000 should the order be violated. Carrasco accepted the argument of the coalition that alleged that the “origin of the data concerning the educational and the economic level of the respondents makes it impossible to verify any possible irregularity.” On September 10, 2012, the judge of the 114th Electoral district in the state of Ceará, Mário Parente, provisionally suspended the dissemination of the third round of a pole done by O Povo/Datafolha on voters’ preferences; the suspension was done at the request of candidates for mayor of Fortaleza, Inácio Arruda (PcdoB) and Renato Roseno (Psol). A decision by Judge Luciano Lima Rodrigues cancels the two provisional decisions that prevented publication of the third poll by the institute in Fortaleza. The poll had been questioned by the two candidates for mayor. On August 30, 2012, the judge for the 36th Electoral district of Mato Grosso do Sul state, Elisabeth Rosa Baisch, at the request of candidates Reinaldo Azambuja (Novo Tempo Coalition) and Alcides Bernal (Força da Gente Coalition) prohibited circulation of the newspaper Correio do Estado, should it contain articles on voters’ intention polls for the mayor of Campo Grande (MS). In addition to proceeding in an unconstitutional manner, Her Honor the Judge, by ordering the Federal Police to inspect the newspaper offices for the purpose of impeding the supposed publication, acted arbitrarily, characterizing the newspapers as the most authoritarian in Brazilian history. On July 11, 2012, the electronic newspaper Século Diário suffered judicial censorship for the third time. Judge Ana Cláudia Rodrigues de Faria Soares, of the 6th Civil Court of Vitória (ES), prohibited the newspaper Século Diário from keeping on its site three articles and two editorials on the action of Prosecutor Marcelo Barbosa de Castro Zenkner, first published between May 2010 and March 2012. Judge Ana Cláudia Rodrigues de Faria Soares, not satisfied to disobey the constitutional provision that prohibits censorship of news production, assumed the right to order that from now on the digital newspaper Século Diário must follow editorial “recommendations” stipulated by her in improper meddling in the editorial autonomy that press entities enjoy under the Constitution and later decisions made by the Federal Supreme Court in the judgment of similar cases. On April 31, 2012, the Court of Justice of Minas Gerais ordered removal from the news portal www.novojornal.com.br, edited in Belo Horizonte (MG) by Marco Aurélio Carone, of the articles “TJMG: The Secret Life of Appeals Judge José do Carmo Veiga” and “Minas Gerais Appeals Judge is Caught Acting in other Agencies.” The action was approved by Appeals Judge Antônio de Pádua. The articles have to do with activities performed by Appeals Judge José do Carmo that are prohibited by the Organic Law on National Judgeships (LOMAN). In addition to ordering that the articles be removed, the decision prohibits further publications about the appeals judge, and, should they occur, the articles must cite their source and tell the facts without comment, under penalty of a daily fine of from R$ 5,000 to R$ 200,000. Appeals Judge José do Carmo had already attempted to prevent the circulation of the news at the first level, but the judge of the 20th Civil Court, in his decision, denied the request, alleging that it was prior censorship, which is prohibited by the Constitution.

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