A Brazilian court has prohibited Diario de Pernambuco and Jornal do Commercio, two of the largest newspapers in the state of Pernambuco, from mentioning the name or show pictures of the president of the state’s Legislative Assembly, Guilherme Uchoa, news portal Terra reported. The decision also applies to Brazilian station TV Clube.
The decision is related to a controversial child custody case that involves the politician’s daughter, Giovana Uchoa. According to Estadão, the politician filed an application to suspend any further publications under the claim that the articles are biased and give the impression that he is involved in the case. He also claims that his name and image are being unduly harmed.
If the newspapers do not respect the judicial decision, they will have to pay a fine of 50,000 Brazilian Reais (or about $21,500) per infringement. Jornal do Commercio and Diario de Pernambuco said they will appeal the ruling.
This is the second case of judicial censorship in less than two weeks. The previous one was when newspaper Gazeta do Povo do Paraná was prohibited from publishing news regarding investigations led by the National Council of Justice against the president of the Court of Appeals of Paraná, Clayton Camargo.
According to reports collected by the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas, in 2013 there have been at least nine cases where a court barred media outlets and bloggers from publishing information, demanded the removal of published material, or ordered journalists to pay for hefty fines that threaten the sustainability of their media outlets, especially smaller ones. Click below to see the Knight Center’s timeline of judicial censorship in Brazil.
According to a survey from Brazil’s National Association of Newspapers, in 2012 there were eleven cases in which judicial decisions were used to prevent the disclosure of public-interest information.
International organizations such as the Inter-American Press Association and Freedom House indicate that legal abuse is the main impediment to freedom of expression in Brazil. It is also the main reason why Brazil has continued to drop in Reporters Without Borders’ press freedom index. Brazil was ranked 108 among 179 countries this year, and this was its second consecutive year of decline.
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.
