An unidentified gunman on a motorcycle shot and killed Oliveira outside his offices at Rádio Jornal 820 AM, where he hosted a sports program, on July 5, 2012.
The injunction cancels all legal proceedings in the case after 2015, including the 2022 jury conviction of four men in Goiânia, the capital of the state of Goiás, where the journalist was murdered. Among the convicted were Maurício Borges Sampaio, a businessman and current president of Atlético Clube Goianiense, and Ademá Figueredo, a military police officer still on active duty.
]]>The investigation was the result of a complaint filed by the Mato Grosso state governor, Mauro Mendes, in connection to two articles about a local judge’s alleged illicit conversations with miners under investigation for the use of illegal mercury.
The statement said, “It is incompatible with the Brazilian constitutional protection of the right to freedom of the press for a criminal instrument to be used against journalists, especially in the case of representation for an offense against honor.”
Read the full statement here.
]]>On November 15, Alves, a freelance journalist, was sentenced to a year in prison and ordered to pay a fine of Brazilian real 400,000 (US$81,692) for defamation of Judge Rudson Marcos and Prosecutor Thiago Carriço de Oliveira, who were involved in a 2020 rape trial brought by digital influencer Mariana Ferrer, according to multiple news sources.
Ferrer alleged that she was drugged and raped at a party in 2018 by a wealthy businessman. During the trial, the accused’s defense attorney tried to blame Ferrer by producing sensual photographs that she had taken as a model, which he described as “gynecological,” accused her of “fake crying,” and thanked God that she was not his daughter, Alves reported in The Intercept Brasil and ND+.
The defendant was acquitted.
In a preliminary ruling in December 2020, a court ordered The Intercept Brazil and ND+ to “rectify” their reporting after Oliveira alleged that Alves had defamed him. The judge’s ruling instructed the outlets to add specific language to their reporting, which she provided, highlighting that Judge Marcos did make interventions to maintain order and that Oliveira, as lead prosecutor in the case, warned the defense lawyer about his line of questioning.
The case sparked a national outcry and led to the passing in 2021 of the Mariana Ferrer Law, which punishes public agents who violate the dignity of victims or witnesses of sexual violence in court.
“We call on Brazil’s justice system to remedy this blatant injustice against journalist Schirlei Alves, whose reporting on the humiliation of a young woman in the witness box led to legal reform to protect rape victims,” said Cristina Zahar, CPJ’s Latin America and the Caribbean program coordinator, said on Wednesday. “Rather than treating a journalist like a criminal for fulfilling her duty to inform the public, Brazil should follow the standards of the regional Inter-American Human Rights System, which provides for cases of insult, slander and defamation to be dealt with in civil courts.”
The journalist’s attorney Rafael Fagundes told CPJ that the ruling was “arbitrary and illegal.”
“This ruling can be a threat to those who dare to denounce any abuses committed by the judiciary,” he said, adding that he had appealed the decision.
Judge Andrea Cristina Rodrigues Studer, head of the 5th Criminal Court of Florianópolis, who issued the November 15 sentence, told CPJ that judges did not comment on their decisions.
]]>Brito was arriving in his car to report on a public paving project in Cocal, a municipality in the northeastern state of Piauí, when councilor Antônio Carlos Camelo de Pinho ran toward him with a knife, tried to slash at him, and punched him, according to multiple news reports and videos published on Brito’s Facebook page.
Antônio Carlos Camelo de Pinho, also known as Carlão, is a city councilor in Cocal and a member of the Workers Party (PT).
Brito, also known as the People’s Inspector, is an independent reporter who covers Cocal news on Facebook and YouTube, where he has a combined 12,000 followers. Brito received stitches to his forehead and filed a complaint with the police the same day, according to those sources and the police complaint reviewed by CPJ.
“The Brazilian police and public prosecutor’s office must investigate this horrific aggression against journalist Godofredo Brito and hold the responsible accountable,” said Cristina Zahar, CPJ’s Latin America and the Caribbean program coordinator. “It’s unacceptable that a public servant such as a councilor uses physical force against a journalist to prevent him from reporting on matters in the public interest.”
Brito currently opposes the Cocal mayor, Raimundo Nonato Fontenele Cardoso, who is also a member of the PT party. Brito ran for state congressman in the 2022 elections as a member of the Liberal party (PL) and lost. Brito is a supporter of former president Jair Bolsonaro, who was part of the PL party in 2022.
Police Chief Mayson Soares has 30 days from October 23 to conclude the investigation and send it to the prosecutor’s office, Cocal prosecutor Herson Luis de Sousa Galvão Rodrigues told CPJ, adding that only then can the public prosecutor’s office have access to the case.
Soares told CPJ that Carlão appeared at the police station to give evidence and was later released because he was not arrested in the act.
The president of the Cocal council, Alci Márcio de Brito Silva Júnior, told CPJ he’s against any form of violence, but the council will only issue an official statement after the conclusion of the investigation, adding that the incident was “personal stuff” between Brito and Carlão.
CPJ’s calls and messages to Brito were unanswered.
]]>Click the images for more details about these unsolved cases. (Photo grid by Geoff McGhee)
Crisis-hit Haiti has emerged as one of the countries where murderers of journalists are most likely to go free, the Committee to Protect Journalists’ 2023 Global Impunity Index has found. A devastating combination of gang violence, chronic poverty, political instability, and a dysfunctional judiciary are behind the Caribbean country’s first inclusion on CPJ’s annual list of nations where killers get away with murder.
Haiti now ranks as the world’s third-worst impunity offender, behind Syria and Somalia respectively. Somalia, along with Iraq, Mexico, the Philippines, Pakistan, and India, have been on the index every year since its inception. Syria, South Sudan, Afghanistan, and Brazil also have been there for years – a sobering reminder of the persistent and pernicious nature of impunity.
The reasons for these countries’ failure to prosecute journalists’ killers range from conflict to corruption, insurgency to inadequate law enforcement, and lack of political interest in punishing those willing to kill independent journalists. These states include democracies and autocracies, nations in turmoil and those with stable governments. Some are emerging from years of war, but a slowdown of hostilities has not ended their persecution of journalists. And as impunity becomes entrenched, it signals an indifference likely to embolden future killers and shrink independent reporting as alarmed journalists either flee their countries, dial back on their reporting, or leave the profession entirely.
This year’s index documents 261 journalists murdered in connection with their work between September 1, 2013 – the year the United Nations declared November 2 as the International Day to End Impunity for Crimes Against Journalists – and August 31, 2023. It finds that during this 10-year period, no-one has been held to account in 204 – more than 78% – of these cases.
(Journalists killed in the Israel-Hamas war that began on October 7 are not included here because their deaths fall outside of the 10-year index period.)
A 78% impunity rate is a slight improvement on the 90% rate CPJ recorded a decade ago. But it should not be seen as reason for optimism. Impunity remains rampant and the stark reality is that nearly four out of every five killers of journalists are still getting away with murder.
Overall, CPJ has recorded the murders of 956 journalists in connection with their work since it began tracking them in 1992. A total of 757 – more than 79%– have gone wholly unprosecuted.
CPJ’s impunity index includes countries with at least five unsolved murders during a 10-year span. Only cases involving full impunity are listed; those where some have been convicted, but other suspects remain free – partial impunity – are not. Each country’s ranking is calculated as a proportion of their population size, meaning more populous countries like Mexico and India are lower on the list, in spite of having a higher number of journalist murders.
But the pernicious effects of impunity extend beyond the countries that have become fixtures on CPJ’s annual index. Unpunished murders have an intimidating effect on local journalists everywhere, corroding press freedom and shrinking public-interest reporting.
In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Palestinian journalists interviewed by CPJ for the “Deadly Pattern” report published earlier this year said their coverage had been undermined by escalating fears for their safety after the Israel Defense Forces fatally shot Al-Jazeera Arabic correspondent Shireen Abu Akleh in May 2022. CPJ’s investigation found that no-one had been held accountable for the deaths of 20 journalists by Israeli military fire in 22 years. “The impunity in these cases has severely undermined the freedom of the press, leaving the rights of journalists in precarity,” noted the report. (Israel is not listed in the impunity index because fewer than five journalists killed during the index period are classified as having been targeted for murder.)
In several countries in the European Union, typically considered the safest places for journalists, press freedom has come under increasing pressure, with journalist murders remaining unsolved in Malta, Slovakia, Greece, and the Netherlands.
In Malta and Slovakia, full justice in the killings of Daphne Caruana Galizia and Ján Kuciak is yet to be achieved. Greece has yet to hold anyone accountable for the 2010 killing of Sokratis Giolias, with a recent report by “ A Safer World for the Truth” – a collaboration of rights groups that includes CPJ – finding gaps in authorities’ investigations into the murder of Giolias and the similar killing of Giorgos Karaivaz 11 years later.
In the Netherlands, nine suspects are awaiting trial for the fatal shooting of Dutch reporter Peter R. de Vries as he left a TV studio in 2021. While it remains unclear whether De Vries and Karaivaz were targeted because of their work, colleagues in Greece and Holland have told CPJ their deaths have left lingering insecurity and self-censorship in the media community. De Vries’ death had “a chilling effect on journalists,” Dutch crime reporter Paul Vugts – the Netherlands’ first journalist to receive full police protection because of work-related death threats – told CPJ.
In countries considered less safe for journalists, violent retaliation for their coverage also continues.
In the central African nation of Cameroon, the mutilated corpse of journalist Martinez Zogo was found on January 22, 2023. At least one other journalist with ties to Zogo, Jean-Jacques Ola Bebe, was found dead 12 days later. Several journalists warned by Zogo that they too were on a hit list have fled the country; others opted for self-censorship. “The killing, physical attacks, abduction, torture, and harassment of journalists by Cameroonian police, intelligence agencies, military, and non-state actors continue to have a severe chilling effect [on the media],” noted a July report submitted to the United Nations by a group that included CPJ.
Since 1992, full justice has only been achieved for 47 murdered journalists – fewer than 5%. CPJ’s data shows that factors like international pressure, universal jurisdiction, and changes in government can play instrumental roles in securing that punishment.
One landmark case: Peruvian journalist Hugo Bustíos Saavedra. Bustios was killed in an army ambush on November 24, 1988, while covering the conflict between government forces and Shining Path guerrillas. It took almost 35 years for a Peruvian criminal court to sentence Daniel Urresti Elera, then the army’s intelligence chief in the zone where Bustios was killed, to 12 years in prison for his part in the killing. (Explore a timeline of the Bustios case here.)
Urresti’s conviction resulted from a combination of changing internal politics in Peruvian leadership, the re-opening of investigations into human rights cases after Peru’s Supreme Court effectively struck down the 1995 amnesty law protecting military officers, and ongoing advocacy by rights groups – including CPJ – at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
In the Central African Republic, the August death of Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the Russian private mercenary group killed in a plane crash two months after ordering his troops to march on Moscow, has led to hopes that those with information about the 2018 murders of three Russian journalists might come forward, writes CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia Program Coordinator Gulnoza Said. The journalists, Orkhan Dzhemal, Kirill Radchenko and Aleksandr Rastorguyev, were shot dead three days after arriving in the country to investigate Wagner’s activities there.
Universal jurisdiction, which allows a country to prosecute crimes against humanity regardless of where they were committed, can also be an effective tool. Bai Lowe, accused of being a member of the “Junglers” death squad that killed Gambian journalist Deyda Hydara, is on trial in Germany – the first person accused of human rights violations during the dictatorship of Yahya Jammeh to be tried outside Gambia.
International pressure is another factor that may prompt authorities to investigate unsolved killers – even if the probes don’t necessarily lead to prosecution. CPJ’s “Deadly Pattern report about journalists killed by the Israeli military found that authorities were more likely to investigate killings of journalists with foreign passports. “The degree to which Israel investigates, or claims to investigate, journalist killings appears to be related to external pressure,” noted the report.
The Bustios case may have offered a glimmer of hope. But it also underscores that the road to justice can be long and tortuous – and for the vast majority of murdered journalists, it never comes at all.
1) Syria
Fourteen journalists were murdered with full impunity in Syria during the 2023 index period. Ten died between 2013 and 2016, as the initial uprising against the Bashar al-Assad regime widened into a full-scale war involving regional and global powers and the militant Islamic State (IS) began seizing control of Syrian territory. IS is believed to have murdered eight of the 10 killed between 2013 and 2016. Fighting has eased since Assad regained control of most of the country, but Syrian media have been dealt a hard blow as numerous journalists fled into exile and military authorities continue to harass, threaten or detain journalists.
2) Somalia
The worst offender on the index for the last eight years, Somalia dropped below Syria in the 2023 index. This drop to second does not signal an improvement in Somalia’s impunity record, but instead arises from the method used to calculate the rankings: Three of the four journalists murdered in 2013 were killed before September 1 of that year, meaning they fall outside of this year’s index period. Most of the 11 journalists during the index period died between 2013 and 2018, believed to have been killed by Al-Shabaab, an insurgent group which seeks to establish an Islamic state in Somalia. Somalia remains unstable amid a renewed offensive against Al-Shabaab. Covering the insurgent group remains a dangerous, even deadly, assignment. The media are severely hampered in their reporting as journalists continue to face arrests, threats, and harassment.
3) Haiti
Haiti’s entry into the index follows the unsolved murders of six journalists since 2019. Five were killed in 2022 and 2023, among the hundreds of Haitians killed by the criminal gangs that have taken over large parts of Haiti as the country struggles to deal with an economic crisis aggravated by a series of natural disasters and the political void following the 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse. Haitian journalists have also been kidnapped and forced to flee their homes amid fears that their work put them at greater risk than other civilians. (Read more about conditions in Haiti here.)
4) South Sudan
The five journalists murdered in South Sudan all died when unidentified gunmen ambushed an official convoy in Western Bahr al Ghazal state on January 25, 2015. South Sudan’s media have long been under pressure in a country plagued by civil war and human rights violations since gaining independence in 2011. CPJ has documented numerous instances of harassment, detention, jailing and the death of a war reporter in crossfire in recent years.
5) Afghanistan
The militant Islamic State has claimed responsibility for killing 13 of the 18 journalists murdered in Afghanistan in the last decade. Ten died in 2018 alone, nine of them in a double suicide bomb attack in Kabul on April 30 that year, and one shot dead the previous week in Kandahar. While the deadly targeting of reporters appears to have slowed since the Taliban returned to office in 2021, large numbers of journalists have fled the country and the group’s escalating repression forced has gutted the country’s once-vibrant media landscape.
6) Iraq
CPJ has not documented any journalists murdered for their work in Iraq since 2017. Fourteen of the 17 listed in CPJ’s database were killed in 2013 and 2015 amid a resurgence of sectarian violence. While the violence has eased, media restrictions and threats against journalists – especially in Iraqi Kurdistan – continue.
7) Mexico
Killings of journalists in Mexico have dropped from last year’s high, but the country remains one of the world’s most dangerous for journalists. Seventeen of the 23 journalists murdered during the index period are believed to have been killed by criminal fire. CPJ has found that the high levels of violence against journalists can be attributed in part to the failure of state and federal authorities to make the environment safer for reporters or even take crimes against the press seriously.
8) Philippines
The Philippines remains a dangerous place to work as a reporter, especially for radio journalists. While Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has adopted a more conciliatory approach toward the media since becoming president in June 2022, CPJ reported that a culture of self-censorship persists and Marcos’ change in tone has not yet been accompanied by substantive actions to undo the damage wrought to press freedom under the Rodrigo Duterte administration. Twenty journalists have been murdered in the Philippines since September 2013; three since Marcos took office.
9) Myanmar
The number of journalists murdered with impunity in Myanmar remains at five, with no new cases documented this year. The country was listed for the first time in 2022, the same year the country’s military junta jailed dozens of journalists and used broad anti-state laws to quash independent reporting in the wake of its coup in February 2021.
10) Brazil
Brazil is working to reestablish good relations with the media following Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s defeat of far-right President Jair Bolsonaro in 2022, with the government introducing measures like an Observatory on Violence Against Journalists earlier this year. Brazil did not record any new journalist murders in 2023, but the killers – mostly believed to be criminal groups – of 11 journalists murdered in Brazil during the index period remain at large. The 2022 murders of British journalist Dom Phillips and Indigenous issues expert Bruno Pereira in the Amazon continue to underscore the dangers faced by environmental reporters in the region.
11) Pakistan
Pakistan, one of the countries that has appeared on the index every year since its inception, recorded eight journalists killed with impunity during this year’s index period. Four are believed to have been killed by criminals, two by political groups. CPJ has documented numerous press freedom violations in the country following the ouster of former Prime Minister Imran Khan in April 2022.
12) India
India too has appeared on CPJ’s impunity index every year since 2008. The majority of the 19 murdered since September 2013 are believed to have been killed by criminals over reporting on topics ranging from environmental issues to local politics, but journalists are facing increasing pressure ahead of the country’s 2024 election. In addition to detentions, police raids and blocks of news websites, authorities are using a counterterrorism law against the media.
Arlene Getz is editorial director of the Committee to Protect Journalists. Now based in New York, she has worked in Africa, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East as a foreign correspondent, editor, and editorial executive for Reuters, CNN, and Newsweek. Follow her on LinkedIn.
CPJ’s Global Impunity Index calculates the number of unsolved journalist murders as a percentage of each country’s population. For this index, CPJ examined journalist murders that occurred between September 1, 2013, and August 31, 2023, and remain unsolved. Only those nations with five or more unsolved cases are included on the index. CPJ defines murder as the targeted killing of a journalist, whether premeditated or spontaneous, in direct reprisal for the journalist’s work. This index does not include cases of journalists killed in combat zones or while on dangerous assignments, such as coverage of protests that turn violent. Cases are considered unsolved when no convictions have been obtained, even if suspects have been identified and are in custody. Cases in which some but not all suspects have been convicted are classified as partial impunity. Cases in which the suspected perpetrators were killed during apprehension also are categorized as partial impunity. The index only tallies murders that have been carried out with complete impunity. It does not include those for which partial justice has been achieved. Population data from the World Bank’s 2022 World Development Indicators, viewed in October 2023, were used in calculating each country’s rating.
]]>On February 6, the trio, a boat captain, and the captain’s wife left La Pedrera, Colombia, to travel along the Caquetá River to the mouth of the Puruê River in Brazil. They were spending the night at a mining dredge when a military police boat also arrived to stay the night at the dredge. Military police officials said that mining at the river is illegal, according to Ebus, who communicated with CPJ via video, email, and text messages. Ebus said that police were looking for a suspect who allegedly fatally shot the operator of a different dredge and stole half a kilo (about one pound) of gold.
“I felt that we could run into trouble identifying ourselves as journalists, because I sensed something strange was going on while the military police stayed overnight on an illegal mining dredge, so I told them that I was an anthropologist (which I am) and that we were in transit,” Ebus said.
Ebus, Amazon Underworld’s lead journalist and research coordinator, is an award-winning investigative journalist who has been living in Bogotá, Colombia, for 10 years. He was also a fellow for the Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Investigations Network. Cardona and Rufino are freelancers who worked on the Amazon Underworld project.
On February 7, the journalists continued along the river interviewing miners, who told them that military police receive payments of 30 grams (one ounce) of gold per month from each dredge to protect them against dissidents from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Brazil launched a military operation to remove the guerrillas in 2021, but an April 2023 clash between FARC dissidents and unknown gunmen that left several guerrillas dead indicates they remain a presence in the area.
On February 8, a policeman wearing a balaclava and wielding an automatic weapon and another policeman who appeared to be his superior approached the journalists while they prepared breakfast at the riverbank where they were moored. The pair aggressively asked Ebus if they were from a television station because the journalists had taken photos and filmed video.
According to Ebus, the policeman who seemed to be in charge insinuated that nobody would know if Ebus was hurt or killed.
The journalists complied when the policeman with the balaclava ordered them to erase the content of two memory cards. The police confiscated three other memory cards and two adapters from the journalists. After the police left, the journalists decided to abort the trip.
Ebus said they then followed the group’s security protocol, alerting colleagues monitoring their trip through a device that tracked their location and requesting they contact Japurá police and other authorities, such as the Ministry of Justice and Public Security and the Dutch and Colombian embassies in Brazil.
Three hours later, Ebus said the same military police riding in a boat stopped the journalists’ boat in the middle of the river to return the memory cards and adapters. The policemen warned them of the risk of pirates and said that the alleged killer was still at large. Ebus told police they were returning to Colombia.
Also on February 8, military police in Amazonas state sent a text message—a statement explaining their interactions with the journalists that Ebus said contained falsehoods—to the Brazilian editor of the Amazon Underworld project. The editor filed an online complaint about the incident. CPJ sent text and email messages to the military police press officer but did not immediately receive a response.
[Editors’ Note: The fourth paragraph in this report has been updated to include Ebus’ fellowship at the Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Investigations Network.]
]]>Zampollo was in Prainha following up on a July 28 police offensive launched in response to the killing of a police officer in the Vila Zilda community in Guarujá. The so-called Operação Escudo (Operation Shield) left at least 16 dead in Guarujá and Santos, 50 miles (80 km) from São Paulo, and is considered the most violent since police killed 111 inmates at the Carandiru prison in 1992.
Read the English translation of the letter below and scroll to download the original in Portuguese.
São Paulo, August 22, 2023
To Your Excellency Tarcísio de Freitas
Governor of the State of São Paulo
To Your Excellency Mr. Guilherme Derrite
Secretary of Public Security of São Paulo
The undersigned organizations, dedicated to the protection and defense of press freedom, hereby submit and request the following before Your Excellencies.
On Aug 15, 2023, with the airing of TV Globo’s Profissão Repórter program, another episode of violence involving São Paulo State Military Police against journalists was disclosed. On that occasion, journalist Danielle Zampollo was investigating the Prainha community in the city of Guarujá when she was threatened and intimidated by police officers.
After identifying herself to officers who arrived in a patrol car at the scene, the reporter began filming in one of the community’s alleys. Without any identification on his uniform, a military police officer pointed a rifle directly at the reporter and kept it that way for 17 seconds. According to the journalist, there were no other people around or any suspicious movement that justified the use of the weapon.
The reporter then sought shelter in a resident’s house, and while she was at the door of the house she was approached again by the same military police officer. The security agent began filming the journalist and harassing her. The video, which was widely shared on social media, questioned the journalist’s presence there as if it posed a threat to police activity.
Journalists carry out a function of public interest and that is constitutionally protected in terms of freedom of expression and the press. By documenting and investigating information about actions taken by public officials from a public institution such as the Military Police, journalists contribute to ensuring public scrutiny, a democratic and necessary exercise.
This incident has a strong impact on the overall state of press freedom protection in the country, which already records high levels of violence against journalists, particularly involving public security agents.
Given this scenario of insecurity for the exercise of the profession, it is crucial to ensure that state agents act with respect for journalists’ work, since, by the nature of their job, they should act to guarantee the safety of all, including press workers.
In light of the presented facts and arguments, we request that steps be taken to investigate and take the appropriate measures regarding the aggressive actions of the police officer in question, and the irregularity of his conduct, particularly due to the lack of identification.
Assuring your understanding, we also request that you publicly express your condemnation of attempts to intimidate and threaten the work of the press, thus reinforcing your commitment to the protection of the constitutional rights of freedom of the press.
For further information, responses or other inquiries, they can also be sent by e-mail to abraji@abraji.org.br.
Signatories:
Associação Brasileira de Jornalismo Investigativo (Abraji)
Associação de Jornalismo Digital (Ajor)
Federação Nacional dos Jornalistas (FENAJ)
Committee to Protect Journalists – CPJ
Download the original letter in Portuguese
In recent years, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and other press freedom groups have expressed concern over an alarming increase in cases in which Brazil’s judicial system is weaponized against journalists and media outlets to stifle and discourage reporting. These legal attacks take many forms, including direct censorship and removal of content through civil lawsuits, criminalization of journalists through slander and defamation investigations and judicial procedures, and attempts to undermine or compromise source confidentiality.
Many journalists in Brazil do not have access to lawyers who specialize in press freedom issues or the resources to pay for legal services. Furthermore, many of them are not aware of several initiatives and organizations that can provide support for journalists and media workers facing legal action, much less how to contact these resources for help.
In response to this critical issue, CPJ has worked with local partners to compile this directory of resources providing different types of legal aid to help connect journalists in Brazil in need of legal support with the initiatives and organizations that can support them. The guide lists various initiatives that can provide support to journalists facing lawsuits, along with a brief description of the type of support provided and information about how journalists can contact them to request support.
]]>On January 8, thousands of supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro raided the National Congress, Presidential Palace, and Supreme Court facilities in a violent riot in the country’s capital Brasília, destroying furniture, equipment, art, and parts of the buildings, according to multiple news reports.
According to the Brazilian Association of Investigative Journalism (Abraji) and the Federal District Journalists’ Union (SJPDF), at least 16 journalists were attacked or harassed at the capital on January 8, and at least 24 others have been targeted in the aftermath of the riots. Authorities have detained more than 1,200 people since the riots began, according to news reports.
“The extreme levels of hostility against journalists in Brazil covering the January 8 riots and other pro-Bolsonaro protests is alarming, and authorities must act immediately to identify the perpetrators and hold them accountable,” said Renata Neder, CPJ’s Brazil representative. “One of the tragic legacies of Bolsonaro’s government is the widespread animosity against the press. The new government must adopt immediate measures to reverse this trend and fulfill its responsibility to protect journalists.”
The journalists attacked on January 8 include:
A full list including the other attacks on journalists can be found on the SJPDF’s website.
Abraji President Katia Brembatti told CPJ via messaging app that such attacks are “the culmination of a process that has been built over the years to characterize journalists as enemies to be defeated.”
“From the encouragement of rulers like Bolsonaro, media workers were dehumanized and delegitimized, becoming targets,” she said.
Between the presidential election run-off on October 30, 2022, and January 7, 2023, Abraji and the National Federation of Journalists (FENAJ) documented 78 incidents of physical attacks, harassment, threats, or acts that damaged journalists’ equipment.
FENAJ President Samira de Castro told CPJ that the incidents “constitute a serious attack on press freedom in the country, which has been deteriorating over the last six years, with violence ranging from physical and verbal aggression to censorship by public agents, judicial harassment, and even murder.”
On January 9, representatives from four press freedom organizations met with Paulo Pimenta, head minister of social communications for President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
In a video tweeted on January 12, Pimenta said media workers “have suffered violence and hate while simply exercising their work, and this cannot be naturalized,” adding that he contacted the civil police chief in Brasília to request that journalist’s cases be handled differently so “investigations move quickly” and perpetrators can be identified and held responsible.
In response to CPJ’s request for comment, the Federal District Civil Police emailed a link to a statement that said they remain “in operational readiness until public order is restored.” CPJ emailed the federal government press office for comment but did not receive any reply.
According to a statement Bolsonaro’s lawyer Frederick Wassef sent CPJ via messaging app, “Jair Bolsonaro strongly condemns the acts of vandalism and destruction of public property” and denies having any relationship with those who participated in the capital riots.
[Editors’ note: The last paragraph in this report has been updated to include Wassef’s reply for comment.]
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