Attacks on the Press in 2010 - Committee to Protect Journalists

<strong>Attacks</strong> on the Press in 2010News reports said the congressman supported legislation decriminalizingabortion, a claim he denied. The same month, an electoral court inTocantins state barred 84 media outlets, including O Estado de S. Paulo,from publishing and broadcasting stories on a criminal investigationinvolving Gov. Carlos Gaguim. A higher tribunal overturned the decisionin Tocantins state, but many censorship orders remained in effect.Over the past several years, businesspeople, politicians, and publicofficials have filed hundreds of lawsuits alleging that critical news mediawere offending their honor or invading their privacy, CPJ research showed.The plaintiffs in these cases typically seek injunctions to bar the press frompublishing anything further about them or to remove offending onlinematerial. A 2010 report by Google said Brazilian authorities had demandedthat content be removed from the company’s servers on 398 occasionsTOP DEVELOPMEN TS IN BR AZIL» Judicial censorship rampant;order bars paper from coveringcorruption allegations.» Convictions won in journalist’smurder as Brazil makes stridesagainst impunity.KEY STATISTIC398Demandsto removeonlinecontent made by Brazilianauthorities to Google inthe first six months of 2010.in the first six months of the year, twice the number of the next country,Libya. Most of the Brazilian demands were court orders, Google said. TheKnight Center for Journalism in the Americas at the University of Texasdocumented 21 cases of judicial censorship in just the weeks leading upto the October 3 presidential election. The study showed censorship wasimposed on newspapers, broadcasters, news websites, and blogs. Severaloutlets across Brazil were fined, ordered to remove content, barred frompublishing or airing specific information, and sued by candidates and politicalparties, the Knight analysis found.One of the most prominent censorship orders barred the daily O Estadode S. Paulo and its website from publishing reports on alleged nepotismand corruption involving Fernando Sarney, son of José Sarney, the Senateleader and former president. The order was first imposed in July 2009 afterO Estado—citing leaked wiretap transcripts from a federal investigation—charged that the Sarney family had used its influence to award jobs andgive raises to friends and relatives. Judge Dácio Vieira banned furthercoverage by O Estado and said the paper would be fined 150,000 reals(US$88,000) for each story published on the case. The Supreme Federal84