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Notícias
03/05/2004
Chapter on Brazil of the
Reporters Without Borders' 2004
report on press freedom
Por
Régis Bourgeat
May
3 - World Day of the Press Freedom
Brazil
Area:
8,547,400 sq. km.
Population: 176,257,000
Language: Brazilian Portuguese
Type of state: federal republic
Head of state: President Luiz Ignácio "Lula"
da Silva
Since
Luiz Ignácio "Lula" da Silva became president,
the press freedom situation has remained satisfactory overall.
Even so, some serious violations have occurred, including the
murder of two journalists.
Two
more journalists were killed in the course of their work in
2003, after Tim Lopes and Sávio Brandão in 2002.
Like them, photographer Luiz Antônio Costa was murdered
by criminals. Although it was not a gangland-style killing,
it showed that the media too are victims of the violence endemic
in the country's big cities. The murder of Nicanor Linhares
Batista was clearly connected with his radio broadcasts attacking
corruption in local government. Police said he could have been
killed on the orders of two local officials whose private life
he had criticised.
Impunity
for those who kill journalists is receding in some cases. Three
people were arrested in connection with the murder of Sávio
Brandão, including the man who gave the order, and the
killer was sentenced to 18 years in jail.
Mozart
Costa Brasil was also given an 18-year sentence for the January
1998 killing of another journalist, Manuel Leal de Oliveira.
However, Costa Brasil was freed on 23 December under a writ
of habeas corpus. Leal de Oliveira's son said the speed with
which the appeal had been dealt with and the date of the release
cast doubt on the validity of the ruling.
In
2002 a campaign by the Brazilian media was probably responsible
for the arrest of Tim Lopes' killers, who were highly-organised
gangsters. These efforts must be continued to force the authorities
to ensure justice is done in similar cases.
The
media should demand the repeal of the 1967 press law, a hangover
from the military dictatorship, under which a journalist was
given a prison sentence for the first time in many years. At
a conference on access to information in September, Marco Aurélio
Mello, former chairman of the federal supreme court, said 150
complaints for criminal offences had been lodged against the
media.
Two
journalists killed
Nicanor
Linhares Batista, owner of Radio Vale do Jaguaribe in Limoeiro
do Norte, in the northern state of Ceará, was shot dead
by two men on 30 June 2003 as he was recording the "Political
Meeting" programme, known for its controversial stance
and during which he often condemned local politicians and officials.
On 20 October state public security official Wilson Nascimento
and Guilherme Soares, one of the examining magistrates in charge
of the case, told a press conference that police had completed
their investigation.
They
said eight people were wanted for questioning and five had been
arrested, including Francisco Lidenor de Jesus Moura Júnior,
one of the two killers. In an interview with the daily Diario
de Nordeste on 10 October, he admitted firing eight of the 11
shots and said the other gunman, Vanderley dos Santos Nogueira,
had promised to pay him 5,000 reais (1,500 euros) for the murder
although he had not told him the motive.
Soares
said federal judge José Maria Lucena and his wife Arivan
Lucena, the mayor of Limoeiro do Norte, were suspected of ordering
the killing but that because of their public status, the Brasilia
High Court had to conduct the investigation. He said there was
"animosity" between the mayor and the journalist,
who had backed her rival in the 2000 municipal elections. Soares
stressed that Linhares Batista had "gone beyond ordinary
criticism", making personal attacks on Lucena and her relationship
with her husband.
Luiz
Antônio Costa, a freelance photographer, was shot and
injured on 23 July as he was covering the occupation of land
at a Volkswagen plant by homeless people from the Sem Terra
movement in São Bernardo do Campo, São Paulo state,
for the weekly Época.
He
died after being taken to hospital and the gunman escaped. On
30 July police arrested two suspects: Alexandre Silvério
Sinza and Renato dos Santos Lira, who had taken part in a hold-up
at a fuel station near the occupied site. Dos Santos Lira admitted
firing at the journalist because he thought he had taken pictures
of them during the hold-up. The second suspect, who was badly
hurt when arrested, was taken to hospital. A third man involved
in the shooting is still on the run.
New
information on journalists killed before 2003
João Arcanjo Ribeiro, a former Brazilian police officer,
was arrested in Uruguay on 15 April 2003 and charged with using
forgeries. He is suspected of being behind the murder of Sávio
Brandão, owner of the daily Folha do Estado in Cuiabá,
in the south-western state of Mato Grosso, on 30 September 2002
and of being a kingpin of organised crime and drug trafficking
in the state. Brazil called for his extradition.
On
14 September Hércules de Araujo Agostinho was arrested
in Rondônia state, western Brazil. A former military police
officer, he was sentenced to 18 years' imprisonment on 12 December
for killing the journalist. Two other suspects were also arrested.
Célio Alves de Souza, who followed Brandão shortly
before the murder, was arrested in October 2002.
Fernando
Barbosa Belo, who is believed to have driven the motorbike carrying
the killer, was arrested on 10 September 2003 in the Italian
city of Florence, where he fled in November 2002. A third man,
João Leite, is thought to have acted as go-between for
Ribeiro and the killers. Folha do Estado had often condemned
Ribeiro as a gangster, describing him as "the Al Capone
of Mato Grosso".
Mozart
Costa Brasil, who was accused of shooting Manuel Leal de Oliveira,
publisher of the weekly A Região in Itabuna, Bahia state,
was convicted by the Itabuna court on 27 September and jailed
for 18 years. The case against Thomaz Iracy Moisés Guedes,
suspected of driving the van carrying the killers, was dropped
for lack of evidence. The chief witness in the case, who identified
Costa Brasil, said she did not see Guedes in the van. She told
the court she had received death threats after saying she would
give evidence. She also identified the other killer, Marcone
Sarmento, who turned himself in on 14 October and was immediately
locked up.
Costa
Brasil was freed on 23 December after a judge accepted a habeas
corpus application. Two witnesses say they have received further
threats since the trial. Leal de Oliveira was killed on 14 January
1998 after accusing the city mayor, Fernando Gomes, of involvement
in corruption. Bahia state civil police closed their investigation
in September 1998 without making any arrests, or even questioning
Gomes. The case was reopened in May 2000 following revelations
in the regional daily A Tarde.
A
journalist imprisoned
Alvanir
Ferreira Avelino of the daily Dois Estados was arrested at his
home in Campos, Rio de Janeiro state, on 29 August 2003 and
taken to Carlos Tinoco da Fonseca jail. He had been sentenced
in 2001 to ten and a half months of "part-time" prison
for a "crime of opinion" under the press law passed
by the military dictatorship in 1967. His wife, Viviane Terra
de Avelino, said he was held for one day a week in a cell with
about 15 other prisoners.
Ferreira
Avelino was convicted after several libel complaints were brought
against him in 1999 by Alexandre Mesquita, a magistrate in the
town of Miracema. He had published a series of reports criticising
the magistrate, and in particular accusing him of abuse of authority.
He was freed on 10 September on the orders of Rio de Janeiro
court following an appeal. A higher court later suspended the
prison sentence.
Two
journalists arrested
Gabriela
Temer and Marco Antonio Cavalcanti, a reporter and photographer
with the daily O Globo, were arrested by two military police
officers on 27 May 2003 as they were covering violence in the
Barra da Tijuca neighbourhood of Rio de Janeiro. They were taken
to a police station by force and the officers tried to seize
Cavalcanti's camera.
Six
journalists physically attacked
Dilmércio
Daleffe, correspondent of the daily Gazeta do Povo in Campo
Mourão, in southern Paraná state, was interviewing
the mayor of Farol about a case of nepotism on 25 February 2003
when a group of about 12 people, including the mayor's private
secretary, burst into his office and assaulted the reporter.
On
19 November Daleffe and Richard Rogers Gonçalves, a cameraman
from TV Carajás, were set upon by activists of the Sem
Terra homeless movement in Luiziania, Paraná, who had
been squatting land there since the end of April. The activists
also prevented TV Carajás reporter Marcos de Souza, Sid
Sauer Walter of the Boca Santa web site and Hermes Hildebrand
of the daily Tribuna do Interior from doing their job. The journalists
were covering the arrival of four farm workers who had come
to plant soya beans on the occupied site. The Sem Terra organisers
in Paraná issued a press release regretting the incident.
Jorge
Nunes, a freelance photojournalist and head of the Brazilian
Media Information Centre, was attacked by a police officer on
4 December while covering a demonstration by students from the
Cidade Nova state school in Rio de Janeiro.
The
officer prevented him from taking pictures of the protesters,
who were demonstrating outside the city council offices, and
tried to grab his camera. Nunes, who was slightly hurt, managed
to get away with the students' help and immediately filed a
complaint at a nearby police station.
Harassment
and obstruction
Álvaro
Lins, the civil police chief for Rio de Janeiro state, banned
his senior officers from giving media interviews on 11 March
2003, which meant the police press office was journalists' only
source of information.
The
Brasilia journalists' union issued a statement signed by 71
political reporters on 29 March. It condemned "serious
obstruction" to their work by federal officials, such as
failure to provide information on ministers' meetings and other
activities. The statement also expressed concern about increasingly
stringent restrictions on photographers and cameramen covering
official events - while government film and photo staff were
given a free hand.
On
19 September a federal judge in São Paulo issued an injunction
against the showing of the "Super Sunday" programme
on the privately-owned national TV station SBT two days later.
The São Paulo federal court had called for the programme
to be suspended for a month and the station heavily fined. The
justice minister said he regretted the ruling, which was akin
to censorship.
On
7 September "Super Sunday" had put out a bogus interview
in which actors posing as members of a dangerous gang operating
in Saõ Paulo made death threats against local politicians.
The actors said afterwards that they had been paid 150 reais
(about 50 euros) for their roles. The communications ministry
opened an inquiry for "incitement to crime", with
possible sanctions ranging from a fine to the suspension or
withdrawal of the station's broadcasting licence.
Régis
Bourgeat
Despacho Américas / Americas desk
Reporters sans frontières
5, rue Geoffroy-Marie
75009 Paris - France
tél.
: +33 (0) 1 44 83 84 68
fax : +33 (0) 1 45 23 11 51
e-mail : ameriques@rsf.org
/ americas@rsf.org
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