By Maira Magro
A São Paulo court suspended payments towards a more than $335,000 defamation judgment against Debate, a daily based in Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo in São Paulo state, O Estado de S. Paulo reports. According to Estado, the court ruled that the debt must still be paid, but the newspaper can still appeal to the Superior Court of Justice, the highest court for non-constitutional questions. Judge José Magdalena sued the newspaper in 1995 for an article that claimed his house and telephone were paid for by the local mayor’s office. The paper lost the case, and its owner, journalist Sérgio Fleury Moraes, said the fine would force the paper to close. Press groups have criticized the size of the ruling and called it an attack of freedom of expression.
Note from the editor: This story was originally published by the Knight Center’s blog Journalism in the Americas, the predecessor of LatAm Journalism Review.
