Brazil: Bolsonaro Leads 2019 Record for Attacks on the Press

BRICS, MEDIA, 20 Jan 2020

teleSUR | Human Wrongs Watch – TRANSCEND Media Service

The far-right former Capitan accounted for three out of five press attacks in 2019.

17 Jan 2020 — Brazil’s National Federation of Journalists (Fenaj) yesterday presented its “Report on Violence Against Journalists and Press Freedom”, highlighting that 208 attacks on media outlets and journalists were reported in 2019, which means an increase of 54 percent over the previous year.

“The main threat to press freedom in Brazil was carried out through 114 cases of ‘attempts to discredit’ the press,” the Fenaj said.

The 2019 report includes this new type of violence because “the Presidency has institutionalized unfounded and widespread criticism to the media and journalists.”

Related: ​​​​​​ Brazil to Go through with Mining on Tribal Lands

The Brazilian federation also reported that the number of cases of physical aggression has decreased; however, 20 journalists were killed in 2019.

According to Fenaj, politicians were the main perpetrators of attacks. About 69 percent of the attacks were related to attempts to discredit the press.

“Bolsonaro’s Culture Secretary paraphrases Nazi Joseph Goebbels’ speech. His citation, which reverberated on social networks, occurred in a video that announced the National Arts Award.”

“The Brazilian art of the next decade will be heroic and national. It will be endowed with a great capacity for emotional involvement and will be equally imperative, since it is deeply linked to the urgent aspirations of our people, or else it will be nothing.”
 — Roberto Alvin, Brazil’s Culture Minister, January 15, 2020

“The German art of the next decade will be heroic, romantic, objective and free of sentimentality, national with great pathos and equally imperative and binding, or nothing.”
— Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Culture Minister, October 8, 1933

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQ2F-c8cZM4&feature=emb_logo

The far-right President Jair Bolsonaro was the author of 121 attacks in 2019, equivalent to 58 percent of the total number of reported cases in the year.

The latest example of the Brazilian presidency’s style occurred on Friday when  citizens criticized the Culture Minister Roberto Alvim, who had previously published a video with clear Nazi connotations.

Bolsonaro immediately posted his own video to defend his pupil through a threatening message.

“To that press looking at me: I am above your glasses. Begin to produce truths… I will not take any action to try to censor you but have shame on your faces. Leave our government alone,”

Bolsonaro shouted, as reported by local outlet Forum, which commented that his video used Joseph Goebbels’ tactics to intimidate.​​​​​​​

“Bolsonaro’s rise significantly affected press freedom,” Brasil de Fato recalled.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

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Source: teleSUR

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