|
 A Brazilian court fined the newspaper Agosto, on June 5, US$ 13,400 for publishing summaries of São Paulo mayoral candidates for the upcoming elections as well as an interview with one of the candidates, the first in a series.
An electoral judge issued a provisional decision ordering the seizure of all copies of the newspaper and its removal from the Internet. The newspaper's director, as well as the NGO which publishes it and the candidate who gave the interview, were all fined a similar amount.
Agosto is published by the NGO Amarribo, a partner of Article 19 which promotes civil society participation in public matters and transparency in local government in Ribeirão Bonito, in the interior of São Paulo.
This is not an isolated case. Two major media outlets in Brazil, the weekly magazine Veja and daily Folha de S. Paulo, were recently fined for publishing interviews with Marta Suplicy, a candidate for mayor of São Paulo. The candidate was also fined.
Another national newspaper, O Estado de S. Paulo, received a complaint for interviewing the incumbent mayor in São Paulo. Local newspapers in the interior of the country have faced similar restrictions.
These cases are based on Brazilian electoral legislation, which forbids any "electoral propaganda" before 6 July 2008, when the campaign period officially starts, as well as a resolution by the Superior Electoral Court, according to which "pre-candidates can participate in interviews, debates and meetings before 6 July 2008, as long as they do not express any campaign proposals."
Article 19, a UK-based freedom of information organization, released a note calling on Brazilian electoral judges to stop imposing sanctions for reporting on the municipal elections scheduled for October 2008.
In a series of recent decisions, electoral judges have punished print media outlets for publishing interviews with candidates for the October elections. These decisions violate the right to freedom of expression, guaranteed in the Brazilian Constitution and in international law.
"The press plays a vital role in informing the public about elections, making sure that citizens understand the position of candidates and parties. Prohibiting the publication of interviews with political candidates undermines the ability of the public to make informed electoral choices, damaging democracy as a whole", said Dr. Agnès Callamard, Executive Director of Article 19.
Article 19 says that it believes that interviews with politicians which aim at informing the public should not be considered electoral propaganda, particularly if they are presented in a balanced and informative way which assists citizens to make informed electoral choices.
Such reporting should be considered core political speech, which is central to the conduct of free and fair elections. The notion of electoral propaganda should be restricted to material which specifically aims to convince the public to vote for a particular candidate.
These decisions have generated strong criticism in Brazil. The Movement for a Democratic Public Prosecutor's Office issued a public note stating that "newspapers and magazines can and should interview people, be they candidates or not, during any period of time, before, during and after the elections.
"In doing so they contribute to strengthening citizenship and bringing life to the fundamental right to information." In recent declarations to the Brazilian press, the presidents of the Supreme Court and the Superior Electoral Court have both supported the right of the press to inform the public without undue restriction.
Article 19 - www.article19.org
 |
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.
What about the law that went into effect on last Saturday? The Brasilians can not even have a can of cold beer on a Friday evening with their co-workers, without getting arrested by the police. What are their Highnesses in the Justice doing about it that violates our constitutional (and God given) rights? What is the press doing about it? Is OAB doing anything about this bloody law.
The best thing to do is to stay at home and watch the Novelas