A judge in Brazil ruled that the media cannot mention the name of the mayor-elect of the city of Campo Mourão, outside Curitiba, Paraná, and a bus company based in the city in reference to an alleged vote-buying scheme during the election.
Resigning from the presidency of the highest soccer authority in Brazil two years before the country was set to host the World Cup was not part of Ricardo Teixeira's plans.
Contrary to international conventions on freedom of expression and access to information, defamation cases in Brazil -- a country characterized lately by a high number of judicial cases against the media -- are still resolved in criminal courts.
After the vote was postponed four times because of a lack on consensus, the Internet Bill of Rights, a bill that establishes the rights and obligations of Internet users in Brazil, is back on the floor of the Chamber of Deputies Tuesday, Nov. 13.
The courts have become the greatest hurdle to freedom of expression in Brazil, according to international groups like Inter American Press Association and Freedom House. If judicial offensives are a hurdle for large media organizations, any participation in the political sphere by small websites and blogs can be a death sentence.
One of the most respected media outlets in São Paulo, Brazil, the newspaper Jornal da Tarde (JT in Portugese) released its final edition on Wednesday, Oct. 31, after 46 years. The newspaper decorated its farewell cover with a photo taken from the Itália building, a postcard picture of the city, and the line, "Obrigado, São Paulo" (Thank you, São Paulo).
After a tumultuous first round of municipal elections in Brazil for journalists, who suffered censorship and attacks by candidates or their supporters, the second round elections, which took place on Sunday, Oct. 28, saw similar levels of violence against reporters in the South American country.
The National Newspaper Association of Brazil (ANJ) said the decision of its members to opt out of Google News en masse has made the service “very deficient” because it no longer has “the content with the highest credibility and quality in the nation.” However, ANJ reiterated its disposition to negotiate with Google a financial compensation for the use of the newspapers’ content.
After going missing for eight days, Brazilian journalist Anderson Leandro da Silva was found dead in a rural area outside Quatro Barras, in the city of Curitiba, on the afternoon of Thursday, Oct. 18, reported the newspaper Gazeta do Povo.
On Monday, Oct. 15, The Brazilian Public Ministry of Paraná announced it would investigate the disappearance of video journalist Anderson Leandro da Silva, reported the website G1.