Brazil

New York, December 15, 2009—Unidentified assailants shot and killed Brazilian media owner and radio host José Givonaldo Vieira on Monday morning in northeastern Pernambuco state, according to local news reports. The Committee to Protect Journalists called today on Brazilian authorities to conduct a thorough investigation into Vieira’s killing and to promptly bring to justice all those responsible.

We issued the following statement today in response to yesterday’s decision by the Supreme Federal Tribunal, Brazil’s highest court, rejecting an appeal from the daily O Estado de São Paulo and its Web site Estadão in a case of censorship. In July, a regional court barred both outlets from publishing reports on a corruption scandal involving the son of Senator and former Brazilian President José Sarney. O Estado de São Paulo said it will appeal the decision...

New York, September 29, 2009—U.S. freelance journalist Joe Sharkey, who covered a 2006 plane crash in Brazil in which he was a passenger, faces an onerous civil defamation suit for comments he said were wrongly attributed to him. On the third anniversary of the accident, the Committee to Protect Journalists calls on Brazilian judicial authorities to dismiss the case, which is based on the tenuous claim that the comments insulted the nation of Brazil.    

On July 31, 2009, Judge Dácio Vieira of the Federal District Court in Brasilia banned the Brazilian daily O Estado de S. Paulo and its Web site Estadão from publishing reports on an corruption scandal involving the family of former Brazilian President José Sarney, according to local news reports.

On July 16, 2009, police detained freelance photographer Antônio Carlos Argemi while he was covering a protest outside the home of Rio Grande do Sul Governor Yeda Crusius in Porto Alegre, 834 miles (1,342 kilometers) southwest of Brasilia.

New York, July 10, 2009--A judge in the northern state of Pará ordered prominent Brazilian journalist Lúcio Flávio Pinto, at left, on Monday to pay US$15,000 in damages in a civil libel suit. The decision is part of a systematic pattern of legal harassment against Pinto, who faces more than 10 lawsuits from powerful plaintiffs, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

New York, May 28, 2009--The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes Wednesday's conviction in the June 2003 murder of Brazilian journalist Nicanor Linhares but calls on the authorities to ensure that all those involved in the killing of the radio host are brought to justice. 

May 2009

News from the Committee to Protect Journalists

New York, May 7, 2009--The Brazilian Supreme Federal Tribunal's decision to strike down the 1967 Press Law, a measure that imposed harsh penalties for libel and slander, is a crucial step forward in the campaign to eliminate criminal defamation laws in the Americas, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. CPJ and other groups had long urged that the anachronistic law be removed from the books.

In response to yesterday's repeal of Brazil's infamous 1967 Press Law by the Supreme Federal Tribunal, we issued the following statement...