Senator Roberto Requião (PMDB) forcefully took Radio Bandeirantes reporter Victor Boyadjian’s tape recorder after being asked about his $15,000 a month pension, O Globo reports. He receives the pension as the former governor of Paraná, a post from which he resigned to run for the Senate.
On May 24, drug traffickers tossed three homemade bombs toward the press team covering a police raid in the north zone of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, iG reports.
A judge in Tocantins state has issued an indefinite injunction against the Portal Arnaldo Filho news site, blocking it from publishing complaints by ex-workers at a private school in the city of Araguaína, Conexão Tocantins reports.
In a joint session on April 19, the Human Rights and Science and Technology committees passed an information access bill, which ends the state of indefinite secrecy for public records, the Agência Senado reports.
The Parliamentary Front for Freedom of Expression and the Right to Communication with Popular Participation was launched by Brazilian lawmakers on April 19, Agência Câmara dos Deputados reports.
The director-general of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Irina Bokova, condemned the April 9 killing of Brazilian journalist Luciano Leitão Pedrosa.
What was supposed to be a debate about the Middle East on the program Manhattan Connection, on the Brazilian channel Globonews, ended up creating a diplomatic crisis between Brazil and Jordan when the journalist Caio Blinder called Queen Rania de Jordania a “piranha” while commenting about first ladies of the region, reported The Telegraph.
Guilherme Mendes, Carlos Batista, and Edmilson Luz for TV Liberal were arrested in the city of Acará, Pará, while reporting on complaints by users at a local health clinic, Portal ORM reports.
In another case of court-ordered censorship in Brazil, journalist Esmael Morais’ blog was taken down at the request of the governor of Paraná state, Beto Richa, Folha de São Paulo reports. The politician’s suit against the blog began during the 2010 electoral campaign season, when Morais posted a video comparing Richa to Adolf Hitler.
Luciano Leitão Pedrosa was killed the night of April 9 in a restaurant in the northeastern Brazilian state of Pernambuco, G1 reports. The journalist worked for Radio Metropolitana FM and hosted the program Action and Citizenship on TV Victoria, where he discussed criminal allegations and police issues.