A top official in the Social Defense Secretariat in the Brazilian state of Pernambuco, Colonel Elías Augusto Siqueira de Souza, was fired last week after pressuring a local journalist to reveal his sources, Folha de Pernambuco reports.
The Brazilian Senate is considering a proposed Constitutional amendment that would make Internet access a right for all citizens, according to El Nuevo Herald. Sen. Rodrigo Rollemberg, author of the proposal, wants to make the government responsible for providing Internet access to everyone.
Journalists working for big media companies and their independent blogger colleagues are facing the same problem: the risk of lawsuits for their work.
Despite strong results reported by media companies like Estado and Editora Abril, the layoffs of journalists in São Paulo already total 207 this year.
Brazil’s Communications Minister Paulo Bernardo says he wants to “comb through” the omnibus bill dealing telecommunications and broadcast regulation, O Estado de S. Paulo reports. The goal is to clarify the languages and provisions in the controversial bill that was initially proposed by Bernardo’s predecessor, Franklin Martins.
Lourival Rodrigues Moraes, a former city councilman of Pontes e Lacerda, in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso, was sentenced to one year in prison for threatening a journalist last June, according to TV Centro América.
Responding to public outcry, the government of Mato Grosso do Sul state in Brazil plans to remove access restrictions to the site of the online newspaper Midiamax, which was blocked on public computers connected to the system of the Superintendency of Information Management, Midiamax reports.
Antônio Carlos Almeida Campelo, a judge in Brazil’s 4th Federal Civil Court in the northern state of Pará, issued an injunction blocking journalist Lúcio Flávio Pinto from publishing any information about a case against several business people in the state, Diário Online reports.
Carlos Santos, a journalist in Mossoró in the northeastern state of Rio Grande do Norte, was convicted to four months in prison for three blog posts that the city’s mayor found offensive, Mossoró Notícias reports. For each piece, he was sentenced to one month and ten days in prison and is required to donate approximately a total of $3,600 fines to charity.
The founder and editor of Pura Política, João Andrade Neto, was arrested and accused of demanding money from business people in the northeastern Brazilian state of Bahia in exchange for not publishing allegations against them, Correio reports. He is being held on charges of extortion and attempted extortion.
The site Midiamax, a digital newspaper in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul, said in a message sent to the Brazilian Press Association (ABI in Portuguese) that it is being censored by the state government. According to Midiamax, access to its site is blocked on public computers connected to the system of the Superintendency of Information Management.
Carlos Gaguim, the former governor of Tocantins state, and two federal representatives have brought a case to the Supreme Electoral Court against current the current governor and vice-governor, Siqueira Campos and João Oliveira, respectively. Gaguim, who was defeated in the October elections, has charged the current administration with vote-buying and media, political, and economic abuse, Terra reports.