In a talk to commemorate World Press Freedom Day on May 3, Brazil’s UNESCO representative, Vincent Defourny, called for the passage of a stalled public information access law, G1 reports.
“The general access to public information law is about to be approved by the Senate. It could contribute to a forceful reduction in the information asymmetries that still exist in Brazil,” Defourny said, quoted by Folha de São Paulo. He also declared his support for an upgrade to the regulatory framework that governs the country’s media sector.
At the event, the minister of the Presidency’s Social Communications Department, Helena Chagas, said that the government still supports the law, Terra explains. “We want it to be passed soon. It is a great step towards the democratization of information access,” the minister said, quoted by Estado de S. Paulo.
She added that one of the government’s principal goals is to increase digital inclusion so that the citizenry can, through access to information, make informed choices.
President Dilma Rousseff hoped to sign the bill into law on May 3, however the bill’s rapid passage was stymied by Senator Fernando Collor de Mello, a former president who was impeached in 1992, who has been attempting to block the bill in Congress.
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.
