ARCHIVES: Brazil
Press freedom groups have expressed shock at the December 30, 2008 announcement that Cláudio Orlando "O Ratinho" do Nascimento, like Claudino "Xuxa" dos Santos Coelho before him, has been granted a partial release for "good behaviour." The two men, known members of a Rio de Janeiro gang, were sentenced in 2005 to 23 years and six months in prison for the June 2002 murder of TV Globo reporter Tim Lopes. Lopes was investigating corruption of minors by drug traffickers in the Rio de Janeiro favela... MORE
Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has wlcomed the progress being made in the investigation into the abduction and torture of two journalists employed by Brazilian newspaper, O Dia , and their driver in the Rio de Janeiro favela of Batan on May 14. Three military police officers wanted in connection with the case—Fabio Gonçalves Soares (also known as 'Fabinho Catiri'), Marcos Antonio Alves da Silva (aka 'Marcos do Bope') and André Luiz de Mattos (aka 'Cocada')—were arrested in a major operation... MORE
One of Brazil's highest federal courts has ruled that a former mayor in the northeastern state of Ceará should be tried before an ordinary court for the 2003 murder of Nicanor Linhares Batista, the owner of Radio Vale do Jaguaribe, a radio station based in the town. The Superior Tribunal of Justice (STJ) passed the order against Maria Arivan de Holanda Lucena, the former mayor of Limoeiro do Norte, in Ceará state, on December 4, Paris-based Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) reported. Arivan and... MORE
The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) has urged newspaper readers throughout the Americas to sign an open letter to Brazil's President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva calling on him to have light shed on the death of television programme host José Carlos Mesquita on March 10, 1998 in Ouro Preto do Oeste, Rondônia, Brazil. Mesquita had exposed drug trafficking and misuse of funds intended for the health sector. Several irregularities in the investigation into his murder have contributed to the... MORE
The family of journalist Luiz Carlos Barbon Filho are being harassed a year and a half after he was murdered in Porto Ferreira, in the Brazilian state of São Paulo. There are concerns that this is linked to their participation in the investigation of the crime perpetrated on him. After Barbon was murdered on May 5, their house was attacked and his widow, Kátia Rosa Camargo, received several silent phone calls, according to London-based ARTICLE 19. In February 2008, after giving an interview to... MORE
The Jornal Atual newspaper, based in the inland town of Itaguaí in Brazil's Rio de Janeiro state, has suffered a significant reduction in its distribution. According to the newspaper's owner, Marcelo Godinho, 15 street newsstand vendors have refused since November 6 to put the newspaper out for sale to their customers. All of the newsstands in question belong to the same owner, known as "Rodolfo", who is a close friend of the town's mayor, Carlos Busatto. Jornal Atual had been publishing... MORE
Fourteen media outlets have been fined in 2008 by the electoral courts for publishing interviews with those seeking office in the upcoming municipal elections, scheduled for October, or in some cases, even just their photographs. Electoral judges deemed that the media outlets and the politicians were carrying out election advertising before July 6, the official starting date of the campaign. According to Associação Brasileira de Jornalismo Investigativo (ABRAJI), one of the most well-known... MORE
Odnei Fernando da Silva, the civilian police inspector who is accused of heading the militia that kidnapped and tortured two O Dia journalists and their driver in Rio de Janeiro's Batan favela on May 14, surrendered to the authorities on June 16. Also known as "01", "Dinei" and "Águia", Da Silva went with his lawyer to the headquarters of the Department for Repression of Criminal Actions and Special Investigations (DRACO) to give himself up. He had been on the run since June 4, when a warrant... MORE
The conviction for “electoral propaganda” against daily A Folha de São Paulo and magazine Veja after they published interviews with a prospective candidate to municipal elections in São Paulo in southeast Brazil has been described as "absurd". Paris-based Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) said Thursday that the verdict placed an unacceptable limit on press freedom and that reform of the current electoral law was inescapable. The electoral justice court of Sao Paulo on June 16 found the daily and... MORE
Two masked men fired at reporter Edson Ferraz of TV Diário (a station affiliated to the privately-owned Rede Globo network) on May 15 in Mogi das Cruzes, an outlying suburb of São Paulo in Brazil. Ferraz escaped unhurt. The 25-year-old journalist had been covering a case of corruption and money-laundering involving 19 local policemen and had been warned of possible reprisals. “In some respects, Ferraz’s case recalls the murder of Luiz Barbon Filho, a reporter for the Jornal do Porto weekly, the... MORE
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