|
 Brazilian Judge João Paulo Capanema de Souza, of Rio de Janeiro's 24th Special Civil Court, ordered, on July 15, columnist José Simão, of the daily newspaper Folha de S. Paulo, to refrain from making references to TV Globo actress Juliana Paes in his humor writings or he would be subject to a fine of US$ 5,000.
Paes filed a complaint against the columnist and the newspaper after Simão made humorous analogies between her and her character in a soap opera. Making reference to the characters Indian caste (casta, in Portuguese), Simão wrote that in real life Paes is "not chaste at all" (also casta in Portuguese). The actress said the columnist had exceeded permissible limits, affecting her and her family's honor.
The Folha de S. Paulo's lawyers, Taís Gasparian and Mônica Galvão, view the judge's decision as having dealt with humor as though it is unlawful, "which amounts to censorship".
Simão has said he will not apologize because he does not believe the word "casta" to be offensive. He went on to say that the ruling against him affects freedom of expression.
In a separate development, on 16 July, freelance photographer Antônio Carlos Argemi was arrested by the police as he covered a demonstration by public school teachers in front of the home of Governor Yeda Crusius. The incident took place in Porto Alegre, the capital city of the state of Rio Grande do Sul, in southern Brazil.
Rio Grande do Sul's Journalists' Union reported that Argemi was accused of disrespecting the authorities and was taken to the police station, where he was questioned and then released. Argemi has said he will file a complaint regarding the incident.
Other journalists were also prevented from covering the demonstration. According to José María Rodrigues Nunes, the journalists' union president, the police cordoned off the area to keep reporters away. Six demonstrators were also detained.
 |
Subscribe to this comment's feed
The small, coastal town of Condé is located just a twenty minute's drive from João Pessoa, the capital of Paraíba. The Northeast of Brazil has historically been a place of encounter and mixing between peoples. For millenia groups of indigenous people fished, farmed, migrated and sometimes fought along this large, fertile area. 
The Brazilian diplo-MÁ-cia (bad diplomacy) carries on its accelerated course towards the non-acknowledgment of human rights, although sometimes it takes pleasure in saying that it does precisely the opposite. The visit of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is another example of a diplomatic omission that verges on hypocrisy. 
On July 4, 2006, representatives of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay met in Caracas to sign the protocol for the entrance of Venezuela into the Southern Common Market (Mercosur). After two and a half years, the protocol was approved by the legislative bodies of Argentina and Uruguay, and as of now it may be only days away from being ratified by the continent's economic megalith, Brazil. 
Some sectors of the fight against AIDS have suggested that Thabo Mbeki, the former president of South Africa, committed genocide through his absence from the fight against the illness in his country throughout his two terms. 
One hundred and eleven years after Brazil abolished slavery, the number of workers deprived of their freedom is still huge. They raise cattle, produce charcoal, sugar cane or timber. Some of them, most undocumented Bolivians, work in basements of small apparel factories in São Paulo and other metropolis. 
On November 7, 2009 a few friends and I had an opportunity to take a look inside a Brazilian jail outside the city of Rio de Janeiro. We were able to take some amateur footage of our experience on video (see link below). It's no surprise, of course, that the typical Brazilian jail lacks some of the functionality of those in North America or Europe, but our experience that day was quite shocking. 
Depletion of the Amazon Rainforest is not a new concern facing environmentalists, biologists, ecologists, and a growing number of the Amazonian indigenous peoples. For decades they have feared for the fate of the world's most biologically diverse and species-rich hothouse. 
Geisy Arruda made history this week in Brazil, but for all the wrong reasons. What began as a poorly planned fashion statement has become a worldwide tale. Geisy decided to wear a pink mini-dress to her private college in São Paulo state, and after that, all hell broke loose. 
The push of vigilante groups in Rio de Janeiro's favelas (shantytowns) in the last three years is the most important and alarming information of the just-released study by the Rio de Janeiro University's Violence Research Center (Nupev-Uerj). 
A dispute over drug trafficking territory in Rio de Janeiro has intensified lately, leaving in its wake unprecedented acts of violence, such as the downing of a police helicopter in the northern zone of the city on October 17. Three policemen died and another two were injured. This event has drawn the attention of the international media, who are raising the issue of public security for the 2016 Olympics to be held in Rio.