PRESS FREEDOM AT RISK IN BRAZIL

THE INSTRUMENTALIZATION OF CRIMES OF OPINION AGAINST JOURNALISTS

Abstract

Freedom of press, as a fundamental element of liberal democracy, plays roles in politics that, in circumstances of authoritarian rise, are object of anti-democratic concerns. Thus, in addition to guarantee of free and multiparty elections, the protection of the set of freedoms of expression is a parameter for democracy, because only with this protection, it’s possible to provide freedom of information and construction of political opinions that will lead to the electoral result. In this sense, this article seeks to investigate the use of legislation that criminalizes opinions, such as the provisions of the Brazilian Penal Code of 1940 and the National Security Law of 1983, against critical journalists and opponents of the Government of President Jair Bolsonaro, as of 2019, in the context of recession of democracies and autocratization in Brazil. The central hypothesis, which was finally confirmed, indicates that to reduce the space for press freedom it is not necessarily necessary to use official instruments of censorship as occurred in the Dictatorship of the New State of 1937-1945 and the Military Dictatorship of 1964-1985. Other practices such as economic threats to newspapers and magazines, the use of legal proceedings against journalistic opinions, personal offenses to journalists and the discrediting of the press activity have led to indirect censorship and self-censorship that challenge democracy itself.