An inter-religious meeting at the Maracanã stadium in Rio de Janeiro to mark the beginning of the Peace Cup campaign (Tomaz Silva/Brazil Agency)
A request to remove 16 videos from YouTube has sparked a broad debate on the limits of freedom of speech and religious expression in Brazil. According to the complaint by the National Association of African Media, filed to the Regional Prosecutor’s Office of Rio de Janeiro (MPF), the videos encourage intolerance and prejudice against religious practices of African origin (Candomblé and Umbanda). The videos were posted by the Igreja Universal do Reino de Deus (IURD), a Neo-Pentecostal church.
The federal prosecutors from the MPF asked Google Brazil to remove the videos. But Google refused, arguing that the material disclosed “would be nothing more than the manifestation of the religious freedom of the Brazilian people” and that the videos “did not violate the company’s policy”.
On 17 May, the issue was taken to the federal court in Rio de Janeiro. There, judge Eugenio Rosa de Araújo denied the request for the removal of the videos. “Its contents are manifestations of free expression of opinion,” he stated. He argued that “the African-Brazilian religious practices do not constitute a religion” because “the religious manifestations (African) do not contain necessary traits of a religion”. He stated that a religion needs to have traits such as a baseline text (“as the Bible or the Koran”), a hierarchical structure and one God to be worshiped.
Notably, the ruling has two parts: the first determines that the videos are to be kept online, and is based on the right to freedom of expression. In the second part of the sentence, the judge defines what religion is, and excludes religions with African-Brazilian origin from this scope.
The representative of the Commission Against Religious Intolerance, Ivanir dos Santos, accused the judge of encouraging prejudice. “He is an employee of a laic State and is submitted to the Brazilian constitution and laws. He violated the constitution and the law against the racial discrimination.”
Facing such strong reaction, the judge Eugenio de Araujo Rosa went back on his decision. In a statement, he admitted he made a mistake and revised his sentence. “The strong support of the media and civil society demonstrates unquestionably the belief in the worship of such religions,” he said, referring to African-Brazilian beliefs.
But the original position of the judge is still causing reactions. The Order of Lawyers of Brazil repudiated the ruling, while the MPF has filed an appeal, arguing that “the decision mistreats the awareness, the honour and the dignity of millions of Brazilians who recognise themselves in these religions”. Protests by African-Brazilian culture organisations were held in at least seven cities. Leaders of all Brazilian beliefs gathered at Maracanã Stadium, calling for more peace and religious tolerance.
In addition, representatives from the MPF will file a lawsuit to the Superior Court of Justice (STJ), one of the highest organisations in the Brazilian judiciary system, against Judge Eugênio Rosa de Araújo. “Our intention is to remove the videos. It is not about freedom of expression, but about the spread of hatred,” said Santos.
On 28 May, the Federal Regional Court (TRF) received a petition with 1,000 signatures, demanding the removal of the videos. The petition was organised by the Commission Against Religious Intolerance and the National Association of African Media. The representatives of the afro culture argue the court’s decision to keep the videos on the internet violates the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 129 of the Brazilian Constitution, and the Statute of Racial Equality (Law 12.288/2010). The statute stipulates that the government must protect the communities of African origin from hateful content in the media. The law forbids “the use of the media to disseminate images and contents that expose a person or group to hatred or contempt on the grounds of religion with African roots”.
FuA national demonstration against prejudice towards African-Brazilian religions has been scheduled. The event is organised by various associations for the defence of black culture, with the support of the Order of Lawyers of Brazil, the National Council of Justice (CNJ), the Human Rights Commission of Congress national and the Organization of American States (OAS). In congress, the Parliamentary Front in Defence of “Traditional Peoples of Terreiro” was created, aiming to institutionalise the defence of religions of African origin. The bloc will be a counterpoint to the Evangelical Parliamentary Front, which brings together 77 congressmen who form the base of support for the government of Dilma Rousseff.
“The theme is of utmost importance, because [it] involves guarantees which the constitution itself assures. I hope that it resolves itself quickly,” the President of the Federal Court, Sérgio Schwaitzer, told the Jornal do Brasil.
According Edson Santos, the deputy of PT (Workers Party) and former minister of racial equality, the judge encouraged the prejudice against African-Brazilian sects. He argued that the magistrate will be denounced at the National Council of Justice. “The decision was absurd and deeply regrettable, because it hurts the constitution”, he told to the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo.
“This conflict of law is challenging and raises questions about the limits of freedom of expression,” said Professor of Philosophy of Law José Rodrigo Rodriguez, of Law School of São Paulo from the Fundação Getúlio Vargas. Analysing the topic in an article, he argues that “one can say, without fear of any excess, that the decision has a clear discriminatory effect, despite the certainly good intention of the judge”.
The Brazilian press is “partially free”, according a study made by Freedom House published on 1 May. The study considered the deaths of three journalists in 2013, the attacks on the work of the press in June’s protests, the lawsuits against bloggers and internet companies and a large number of government requests to remove online content. Brazil scored a 45 — on a scale of zero to one hundred, zero being the best scenario.
The attacks and violence are only one side of the threats to press freedom in Brazil. Communication monopolies standardise the views and concentrate the budget and the audience. The leader is Globo Network, which owns more than half of the television advertising market. The concentration of the media and the intimacy of their owners with powerful politicians is identified by Freedom House as “one of the biggest obstacles to media diversity in Brazil”.
Televisions and radios are government grants, and although the law prohibits monopoly, this is a game of power advantageous for both businesses and the government. There are also congressmen who own or control media. Both sides reinforce each other, forming lobbies to protect their fiefdoms’s of versions and truths. Any proposal on communication democratization or regulation is shouted down by these lobbies as an attack on freedom of expression or an attempt at censorship. The Brazilian Telecommunications Code is 50 years old and a target of campaigns of freedom of expression entities.
However, there is not a declared censorship. All the guarantees of freedom of press and information are established in the Constitution and in various laws. What happens is that press freedom in Brazil is fundamentally compromised by political and state interests and private sponsorships, which finance the media. Thus, it is not a lack freedom, but a lack of autonomy.
Since June 2013, hundreds of protests have been shaking Brazil. During many of them, protesters burned cars belonging to the press. What does this mean? The level of dissatisfaction and resentment is palpable. There’s a heartache that turned against “everything-that-is-there”, including how the media covers the facts. The roles of the press and government is being questioned in the streets. Nevertheless, the sound of these voices is muffled in the media.
With the FIFA World Cup, the exacerbated patriotism and the green and yellow colors have taken control over television commercials, selling an artificial enthusiasm. Advertisers such as private banks, state companies, operators of credit cards, the soft drink industry, beers and cars have invested over £350 million for ads on only one station–Rede Globo, the country’s largest. Each advertiser is spending £1.4 million on advertising per day, the equivalent to a daily Super Bowl.
The largest communication network in Brazil has exclusive rights to broadcast the matches and has the official sponsorship of FIFA. Throughout the day, and especially between 8:30PM and 10PM –“the Brazilian primetime TV” –viewers see an exciting commercial film seeking to promote the acceptance of the FIFA World Cup. With the slogan “Somos um só” (“We are all one”), the advertisement shows how television “has the magic to put the entire country on the same vibe”.
The numbers are even more exciting. Only 30 seconds of a primetime ad cost £168,000. There is still the merchandising: the company is the only one licensed to sell FIFA products. About 1,700 items should yield £534 million to the broadcaster. Such numbers do not harmonise with autonomy of content.
Dozens of federal government announcements are also aired on television. One, for example, announces a rich country, with full employment and a promising future. A country with no inflation, social problems or misery-−”A rich country is a country without poverty”, says the slogan, ignoring the economic crisis, electric blackouts, water shortages and strikes. Petrobras ads claim a solid company, with smiling workers, while in practice the company applies a plan of voluntary dismissals and responds to an investigation into allegations of kickbacks.
With an expenditure of £614 million for ads, the federal government was the fourth largest advertiser in media last year; 65% of the total was invested in TV, according to the Department of Communication of the Presidency. The agenda is to suppress the resentment of the people with a shower of advertising. “We love football and are proud to organize the Cup of the Cups. Therefore, all who come to Brazil will be welcomed and will know a multicultural country, with happy and hardworking people”, said President Dilma Rousseff.
Despite the inundation of propaganda, a survey conducted by the Senate in late April found that 76% of the respondents consider that the expenditure on stadiums are larger than necessary; 86% believe that public funds earmarked for the event would have better use in other areas such as health, education and public safety. 42% of the respondents approve of the event, while 40% disapprove – a technical draw. The margin of sampling error is 3.5 percentage points, plus or minus. The research was not even mentioned in the press.
It can be said that freedom of the press in Brazil at this time is restricted. To talk about protests against the World Cup, a journalist must assume a mild tone to avoid displeasing sponsors. Journalists must also prevent the increasing antipathy to the World Cup, which would bring monumental financial losses. The possibility of withdrawn sponsorships generates a cold feeling for the broadcasters and FIFA.
The ball of Brazil is already rolling and it remains unclear what the outcome of this game will be. In the run up to the opening of the World Cup, workers strikes and protests are on the increase in the country. Journalists do not know what people want, but they listen to experts, the police, and the rulers.
Is the Brazilian press partial in the officialism that privileges the voices of the government and the market in exchange for financial benefits, affable policy and high profits?
India was among the few governments that did not sign the NETmundial outcome statement. But why does it seem that the world’s largest democracy is not putting its weight behind a “bottom-up, open, and participatory” multistakeholder process?
In his address to the NETmundial gathering, Vinay Kwatra, the official Indian representative said, “We recognize the important role that various stakeholders play in the cyber domain, and welcome involvement of all legitimate stakeholders in the deliberative and decision making process. Internet is used for transactions of core economic, civil and defence assets at national level and in the process, countries are placing their core national security interests in this medium. Now with such expansive coverage of States’ activities through the internet, the role of the governments in the Internet governance, of course in close collaboration and consultation with other stakeholders is an imperative.”
The message was clear. The internet has a large role to play in India’s national policy goals, and to that end, a global internet governance ecosystem has to be managed, at the international level, by multilateral mechanisms.
India has over 200 million Internet users — with about 52 million subscriptions — over 900 million mobile telephone subscribers. These numbers are only going to grow. Kwatra, continuing his address, added that, “On our part, however, we would have liked to some of important principles and ideas, highlighted by us and many other countries reflected in the draft outcome document… (we) look forward to constructively engaging with other delegations in collectively contribute to making the Internet open, dynamic and secure, and its governance balanced between rights and responsibilities of all its stakeholders.” (sic)
Kwatra was speaking, of course, at NETmundial, dubbed the “world cup of internet governance.” Held in Sao Paolo, Brazil, on April 23-24, 2014, the conference was announced by Brazil President Dilma Rousseff. The entire chain of events can be traced back to the revelations by Edward Snowden that the US’s National Security Agency had been spying on its own citizens and other countries alike, including the personal communication of President Rousseff. In a heated statement at the UN General Assembly in September 2013, she called for the UN to oversee a new global legal system to govern the internet. She said such multilateral mechanisms should guarantee the “freedom of expression, privacy of the individual and respect for human rights” and the “neutrality of the network, guided only by technical and ethical criteria, rendering it inadmissible to restrict it for political, commercial, religious or any other purposes.
Soon, after a brief consultation with Fadi Chehade in October 2013, the head of ICANN — Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers – an organization thatcoordinates the Internet’s global domain name system, the dates of NETmundial was announced. And to add expectation to the event, in March 2014, the the U.S. Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) announced its intent to transition key internet domain name functions to the global multistakeholder community. It clarified that it would not hand over ICANN to any government-led body. Suddenly, NETmundial gained weight as it was to be the next international forum where the future of internet governance was to be debated – and now one of the organizations government a part of the internet was in play. A far cry from what President Rousseff had suggested in the UN General Assembly, instead of talking about an international legal regime to govern cyberspace, the focus of the meeting turned to multistakeholderism as the way forward in the sphere of internet governance.
The draft outcome statement and the subsequent final outcome state released after the two-day conference is a result of 180 input documents and 1300 comments from over 47 countries, and the work of the 1229 delegates from 97 countries who attended NETmundial. India had an official delegation as well as civil society participants who attended the meeting. In fact, an Indian academic was chosen to co-chair the organizing committee for civil society for the event. Remote participations hubs were set up in cities around the country, including Gurgaon, Chennai and Bangalore. Within the Indian contingent too, as with any large country, there are divergent views on the governance framework to be taken for the internet, with those who support the governments view for multilateralism at the international level and multistakeholderism at home, and those who oppose the official view and encourage an international multistakeholder regime.
The final statement – though non-binding – has squarely put its weight behind multistakeholderism. It talks about protecting the ‘rights that people have offline, must be protected online… in accordance with international human rights legal obligations.’ It also champions cultural and linguist diversity, which was part of India’s official submission to NETmundial. However, when the document starts to tilt towards governance structure is where it diverges from the official Indian position, with language such as – “internet governance institutions and processes should be inclusive and open to all interested stakeholders. Processes, including decision making, should be bottom-up, enabling the full involvement of all stakeholders, in a way that does not disadvantage any category of stakeholder.”
In the crucial area of cyber jurisdiction, it says, ‘It is necessary to strengthen international cooperation on topics such as jurisdiction and law enforcement assistance to promote cybersecurity and prevent cybercrime. Discussions about those frameworks should be held in a multistakeholder manner.’ On surveillance, the most controversial topic from 2013 which prompted the Netmundial meeting in the first place, the document says, ‘Mass and arbitrary surveillance undermines trust in the Internet and trust in the Internet governance ecosystem. Collection and processing of personal data by state and non-state actors should be conducted in accordance with international human rights law. More dialogue is needed on this topic at the international level using forums like the Human Rights Council and IGF aiming to develop a common understanding on all the related aspects.’
The reaction to Netmundial has been varied, depending on whom you ask. There are those who have hailed it as a first positive step towards a multistakeholder process, and are encouraged to find that participants found more things to agree on than disagree. The US called it a “huge success”. The European Commission felt Netmundial put it on the “right track.” Many big businesses released statements indicating they were pleased at the outcome. The civil society group at Netmundial expressed ‘deep disappointment’ that the outcome statement did not address key concerns like surveillance and net neutrality. Others commentators hailed it a big success for big business as it was able to ‘grab the ball on three important points: intellectual property; net neutrality; and intermediary liability’.
In a sense, India’s refusal to sign the outcome statement, and instead take back to its stakeholders seems to be completely aligned with its stated view of the internet. If, as documentation suggests, the internet is being viewed by India as not merely an open, free, global commons that should remain untouched by any major governmental control, but instead a resource that needs to reflect the values of an ‘equinet’ – a platform for commerce, e-governance, national security mechanism to be achieved through fair playing rules established by a ‘globally acceptable legal regime’ and a ‘new cyber jurisprudence’, then there is a long battle ahead. The official Indian argument does not need to be viewed through the lens that presupposes it wishes to inflict censorship in the manner that an authoritarian government might. The argument must be weighed on the merits of this line of thought – that for Indian netizens, business, and even state surveillance to survive, it must be the government who reflects the national interest in international platforms, after having consulted stakeholders back home.
It certainly seems that the weight and development of a billion people sits heavy on the shoulders of the Indian government. The question is: does it need to lead them to the world wide web, or can they find it themselves?
