25 Jul 14 | Brazil, Events, United Kingdom
(Photo: Nina Pope for Contra Band)
Contra Band is a new commission, by Leah Lovett, which brings together musicians and audiences from Brazil and the UK for an experimental live performance of songs censored in both countries between 1964-1985. These dates mark the duration of the military dictatorship in Brazil
Contra Band Tours – Saturday 26th July (6-7pm & 8-9pm)
Audiences are invited on a floating journey, whilst we connect to a live link up with CASA 24, an artist led venue based in Rio De Janeiro. Musicians in both venues will attempt to learn, play and understand their counter parts censored songs.
Contra Band Talk – 3.30-4.30pm
Artist Leah Lovett will be joined by Julia Farrington and Melody Patry from Index on Censorship for a discussion examining issues of cultural censorship within Brazil, explored in Lovett’s new live performance Contra Band for The Floating Cinema. The talk will take place at Kings Place.
Lovett draws on her experience of collaborating with musicians both in London and Rio de Janeiro, and will share her research into cultural creative strategies which respond to political instability and creative invisibility during the Brazilian military regime. Index on Censorship will examine the current challenges facing online freedom of expression, exploring the country’s growing profile in global internet governance debates and the potential consequence of its domestic internet policies.
Index on Censorship is an international organisation that defends and promotes the rights to freedom of expression. The inspiration of poet Stephen Spender, Index was founded in 1972 to publish the untold stories of dissidents behind the Iron Curtain. Today this organisation fights for free speech, challenging censorship globally whenever and wherever it occurs.
Leah Lovett is an artist and writer currently researching a PhD at the Slade, UCL, with support from the AHRC. Her project investigates the spatial politics of Brazilian theatre director Augusto Boal’s invisible theatre as a means of opening up questions and possibilities for her own performance-based practice.
BOOKING DETAILS
Talk: BOOK HERE Free (booking essential) – 15.30 – 16.30 (taking place at Kings Place)
Tour Tickets: BOOK HERE £5.00; £3.00 conc. – timings 18.00 or 20.00 (on-board The Floating Cinema)
21 Jul 14 | Brazil, News and features, Religion and Culture
Journalist and author Luiz Reffato (Photo: Companhia das Letras)
While researching Brazil’s legislation called the biographies’ law, Index on Censorship’s Brazil contibutor Simone Marques spoke to award-winning Brazilian author Luiz Ruffato, whose works include acclaimed novel They Were Many Horses.
Index: By defending the idea of controlling of literary works, such as biographies, wouldn’t some Brazilian artists be executing the role of a censor?
Ruffato: This is a paradoxical subject, because these artists live from the public image they built. People do not buy only a song or a film, people also buy the exposition of this artist. And the moment he becomes a public figure he is no longer a private figure. If this person is no longer a private figure, it is possible that he may have his own life scrutinised. I do not see any problem with that. I think anyone can manage their own life the way they feel like. Whoever wants to write a biography about me can keep calm. They will find absolutely nothing that may dishonour my image. But if they did find something, it would be okay, because I am exposing myself, I am living off that, I am somehow using my public image to make money. Therefore I think that when you move into this public world, you must be aware of that.
I believe it is everyone’s right to know who the people that make the history of their country are, and the artists also make the history of a country — with or without a political standpoint, he is contributing or not contributing to thinking about the country. Therefore I believe it is perfectly reasonable that you know who this person is. That is why I am a little bit shocked, because we must defend freedom under any circumstance; and it is not relative freedom, freedom for me is a universal concept.The freedom we have here appears more like a relative freedom.
We are living a very strange period in Brazil, a moment when the issue of intolerance is really present. This is very curious because we had a military dictatorship, we have a political history of intolerance. And it shocks me that in the exact moment when we are exercising the biggest continued period of democracy, we are at the same time living a moment of absolute intolerance. It is not just a matter of biographies. Politically, any criticism of your actions immediately positions you within a certain ideological bias. It is a binary judgment; it is yes or no. Moreover, life is not yes or no, life is often made up of maybes, and that is why I am shocked because this positioning of intolerance does not take us to a good place.
Index: Where do you notice this type of intolerance?
Ruffato: This intolerance occurs at all levels. For example, in the virtual world. It is the place of intolerant practices, because there people exercise their prejudices and their authoritarian world views, I am shocked, it is absurd.
This positioning against the biographies I think is a bias of intolerance, an authoritarian bias. It is as if you are being placed in specific niches all the time, and I refuse to do that. I try to exercise the freedom that fits me by never having truths — not imposing truths. I defend relative truths. As well as believing that freedom is absolute, I believe truth must be relative. There is only absolute freedom where truths are relative. Where there is absolute truth there is no freedom.
In Brazil, we have a very childish thing, something that children also have , that is of closing our eyes and pretending things have disappeared. I think we have this in our society, you know? It is as if we closed our eyes and that problem did not exist anymore. We have never stopped to discuss our political history, which is a history of dictatorships. For example, the end of the Brazilian dictatorship did not happen because there was a revolution: it was an agreement between the politicians and the military that included a wide amnesty, general and unrestricted. In other words, nobody killed nobody, nobody did anything to anyone, let us play forward. Obviously, this deeply marks our society. We are an extremely authoritarian and intolerant society.
We are xenophobic, we are racists, we are sexists, we are homophobic, and this shines well on the internet. And we are hypocrites as well. We are not a bit cordial. We kill: domestic violence in Brazil is among the highest in the world, and this happens inside our homes; urban violence in Brazil is among the highest in the world. No, we are not a bit cordial. We are only cordial when people agree with us. When somebody disagrees with us, our reaction is extremely violent. But the Brazilian does not disagree in front of the person. We are used to give a pat on the back and, when the person leaves, we stick the knife in their back. Nobody admits that they do it. People do things, or do not do things, and do not have the guts to tell you. We do not have the culture of divergence, of debate. When we diverge, we always react in a hidden way, because disagreement is something unacceptable, it is terrible.
Index: If the biographies’s law is approved in the senate, we will have, really, more freedom to publish books about people?
Ruffato: This is another problem. I think that where there is an excess of laws, they are meant to be circumvented. The less laws there are, the better, because then you know where you are going. Brazil is a country of lawyers, so you must make many laws so they contradict each other and have loopholes. Particularly, I assume that the biographer is a decent person, that he is an intellectually honest person. Therefore, when an author writes a biography, he will face the biographee as a fallible and susceptible to making wrong decisions human being. The author should have a very well grounded and contextualized story he is telling. If the author is not an honest, decent person, and if the biographee’s family feel somehow offended by the work, then I think it is absolutely correct that they bring an appeal or a lawsuit to force the author to confirm, correct or retract what was written. This is within the norm. We have to protect the biographee, this is indisputable. I think we have to have a legislation that protects the biographee, but that protects him from libel, slander and infamy, not from writing things that were factual and occurred. Because otherwise we will fall into a very curious situation. For example, an author who wants to tell the life story of a president would have to have the subject or his family authorise the biography: what kind of history will we tell? It is a government biography.
So, how will we tell the history of Brazil? A history where the ills of Brazil cannot be told? A history, for example, where there is no extermination of indigenous. So we run a very serious risk of failing to tell a more decent history, with its contradictions, because history is also not a truth, but it is a narrative, and biographies also help to compose these narratives. I think this is very dangerous.
Our laws are made to be circumvented and are not clear. I think that this [biographies’ law] should not be an issue. They exist, people live, and some people have importance beyond a moment. So, I think that that should not even be a matter of discussion. But as it is, I do not keep calm, things can end up taking an unexpected turn into intolerance. There will always be gaps because the laws are not clear. And it’s a huge pretension for someone to want to take care of their image as if it was something personal, of their own. It is so stupid! You may describe your father, and each sibling will tell the story a different way, no one will even have the same father or mother. It is a silly idea to think that someone can have an authorised biography because that biography tells “the truth”. I am very afraid of societies that have truths. I do not trust them, because a society that has absolute truths must be very sick, there is something very wrong with it.
Index: Have you ever faced any kind of censorship in Brazil?
Ruffato: The book Eles Eram Muitos Cavalos (2001) was adopted in a university of Minas Gerais admission test and later on was “unadopted”. Because the admissions test was of a religious institution, they claimed that there was too much bad language in the book. Yes, the book has some profanity, but they are in a context. There is no curse word just for the sake of being a curse word. It was the only episode about it. And if there was some problem of constraint in a work of mine, I would keep writing anyway. I write for my readers, not to please anyone.
Index: If you could write a biography today, within this context of censorship? Who would?
Ruffato: I would like to do a biography, yes, but of a person who probably will not cause any problems, someone who has been very biographed, which is Machado de Assis. Just to change the focus, there are already many biographies of him. My theory is that he would not have written what he wrote had he not been who he was. He was a person who had a look from the bottom up. It was this gaze that I think determines the type of literature that he wrote. But I’m very interested in writing a fake biography. When you tell someone else’s story, you are telling your own story, as psychoanalysis says. I want to radicalize it, though, creating a character whose biography I would write. It is not a novel. It is a fake biography, in which I would tell the story of the character with many witnesses, with hundreds of interviews, many documents read, but it was all fake. Maybe I get to be sued: it would be an authorized biography “unauthorized”.
This article was published on July 17, 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
16 Jul 14 | Brazil, News and features, Religion and Culture
Journalist and historian Paulo César de Araújo, author of Roberto Carlos em Detalhes, was sued by the subject of his book. (Photo: Companhia das Letras)
Writing books and making movies about public figures without the need for prior authorisation is close to becoming a reality in Brazil. Until now, Article 20 of the Brazilian Civil Code (Law 10.406/2002) stated that: “The dissemination of writings, the transmission of the word, or the publication, display or use of the image of a person may be forbidden if it affects the honour, the good reputation or respectability, or if it is intended for commercial purposes”. Writing biographies in Brazil today is only possible with permission from the subject or their relatives. Fail to secure this, and the book in question could be banned; the same goes for documentaries, plays and films.
Last April, an important step was taken to end the censorship of unauthorised biographies and use of images of public figures. The Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of the Brazilian Congress, passed bill 393/2011. The so called “biographies’ law” allows the disclosure of biographical information of a person in the public eye without prior authorisation. The law changes the wording of Article 20, guaranteeing access to biographical information about individuals whose actions are of interest to the public.
According to the bill’s author, representative Newton Lima Neto of the Worker’s Party, the original article hurt the Brazilian constitution by establishing a system of prior censorship. “It talks about the need to remove the legal remnants of censorship and avoid the curtailment to the right to information, after years of dictatorship,” he says of the proposed new legislation.
The bill’s path to congress has not been smooth. In 2013, the issue reached the Supreme Federal Court (STF), the highest level of the Brazilian justice system. Minister Cármen Lúcia held a hearing to discuss the Direct Proceeding of Unconstitutionality 4815, a 2012 legal challenge brought by the National Association of Books Publishers (ANEL). This questioned Articles 20 and 21 of the civil code, claiming they were “incompatible with the freedom of expression and information”. It asked the Supreme Court to interpret the publication of biographies in accordance with the constitution, which ensures the right to freedom of expression and thought. Following the hearing the issue was to be assessed in congress, paving the way for the biographies’ law.
The Order of Lawyers of Brazil (OAB), the Brazilian Historical and Geographical Institute (IHGB), the Brazilian Academy of Letters (ABL) and Article 19 Brazil all support eliminating censorship of unauthorised biographies. A manifesto, signed by some of the biggest names in Brazilian literature, was launched in 2014 during the 16th Biennial Book Fair in Rio de Janeiro.
However, there are artists who do not support the adoption of the biographies’ law — as is the case with Grupo Procure Saber, which consists of internationally famous singers such as Caetano Veloso, Chico Buarque, Gilberto Gil, Milton Nascimento and Roberto Carlos (known as O Reior The King). The latter has left the group, but was involved in a noisy lawsuit against the author of an unauthorised biography of him, which Carlos argued this was to preserve his privacy.
The ban on biographies seems to be directly linked to the commercial issue of copyright. Referring to a proposal from Procure Saber for the subjects of biographies to get a share of the profits from book sales, Newton Lima told UOL News the group were “mixing the theme of freedom of expression, right to information, freedom of artistic creation, with the subject of copyrights”.
In 2006, Roberto Carlos sued journalist and historian Paulo César de Araújo, author of Roberto Carlos em Detalhes. There was a plea deal, but Carlos demanded that 11,000 copies were retracted from stores and for Araújo to be arrested. “He treated me like a criminal just because I did my job,” Araújo told the newspaper A Tarde. Speaking to Globonews Network, the writer revealed that Roberto Carlos’ first intention was to burn the books. “Today, he gave up, but the books are saved by security guards in his house,” he said. In another recent interview with TV Brasil, Araújo commented that Roberto Carlos sees his life story as private heritage. “Just as he has a car, he has his history'”, and he believes that writing about this history is like invading his property. With the agreement, the request for an indemnity and the accusation of wrongdoing against Carlos’ honour were withdrawn, and the case closed.
On 15 May this year, Carlos filed a petition to the Supreme Court to take part in the process of discussing publication of unauthorised biographies. The musician created the Instituto Amigo, to participate in the case as an amicus curiae. He went to court against the aforementioned challenge brought by ANEL. He stated, through his institute, that the changes in the biographies’ law “would hinder the right to repair damage to the honour and image” of subjects, and advocated “the prevalence to the right of privacy above the freedom of information”.
“It is an absurd moment in Brazil, where the constitution guarantees freedom, but we need to be careful,” Araújo said in an interview with Gaúcha Radio. “He [Carlos] did not read the book. He should read the book, because his history was built by thousands of Brazilians. If he had read, he would never sue me. But his lawyers wanted to earn money with the action.” Carlos’ defence team is led by Brazil’s most famous lawyer, Antônio Carlos de Almeida Castro — “Kakay” — who also defended culprits in the Mensalão corruption scandal, and is very sought after by politicians.
Araújo has written another book about Roberto Carlos/ O Réu e o Rei (The Accused and the King) talks about the lawsuit and has new information on the singer. It is in fact an unauthorised biography of the unauthorised biography. The book was launched on 22 May, but without an advertising campaign — “to avoid retaliations,” according to Araújo. “We await now that the senate can continue the progress of the biographies’ law,” the author wrote in his blog. The musician, meanwhile, has assured the press he will not sue Araújo again.
But biographical books are not the only censored material in Brazil. Di Glauber, a film about the life of Brazilian artist Di Cavalcanti has been banned for 34 year for violating Article 20. The film was awarded the Special Jury Prize at the 1979 Cannes Film Festival, and is considered one of the masterpieces of Brazilian and world cinema. The family of the painter had the biopic barred in Brazil. Family members have also put a stop to already written biographies about football players Garrincha and Pelé and singer Vinicius de Moraes, among others.
Lawsuits, copyrights, privacy, intimacy, what is really at stake? For journalist Daniel Feix, whose biography about the gaucho actor and singer Teixeirinha was banned, this is a matter of knowing how to live with freedom of expression and the free flow of information: “We still need to evolve in the way how we deal with the freedom of expression. We need to live better with the contradictory and take more responsibility in publishing information. The fact that we are a country that had our freedom cut for a long period in our history is charging a high price. We need to evolve the way we deal with freedom in every way.”
According to Feix, Brazil is a conservative and prejudiced country, but the approval of the biographies’ law is “an important step to bring the country to a higher stage in how people deal with freedom”.
“We are living in a very strange period in Brazil, where the absolute intolerance is increasingly present,” says award-winning writer Luiz Ruffato in an interview with Index. “It’s not just a matter of biographies,” he says. “I think that talking about biographies should not even be a topic of discussion in a free country.”
Another common theme among Brazilian writers is the confusion that exists between public and private. Journalist Eduardo Bueno “Peninha” is emphatic: “It is obvious, evident, screaming that biographies of public figures should be as public as the subjects are. Freedom for the biographies now!”
Peninha, author of an authorised biography, as well as a collection of books on the history of Brazil that has sold over 1 million copies, says there is no more privacy today: “After the revelations of Edward Snowden, and electronic espionage of the United States over the whole world, including the president of Brazil, where did privacy go to? It’s gone to the dogs now!”
The National Union of Books Publishers (SNEL) said it is pleased with the pressure on congress to approve the biographies’ law. The union’s President Sônia Machado Jardim, said that “the need for prior authorisation to publish biographies was a remnant of the dictatorship, unjustifiable in a democratic regime”. According to her, the law will protect the right to privacy, intimacy and honour, while ensuring access to information about notable figures in the history of Brazil and its culture, as envisaged in the constitution. “As the person becomes public, their history is intertwined with the country’s history; but when there are any restrictions on the publication of the stories of these personalities, the preservation of the history is lost. The matter is much bigger [than biographies]. It is to ensure knowledge of the history of Brazil for future generations,” she emphasises.
If approved by the senate, the biographies’ law or PLC42/2014, will go to President Dilma Rousseff for approval and enter into force on the date of its publication in the Diário Oficial da União. But there is an insidious comma in this story.
A last-minute amendment was added to the law when approved by the Chamber of Deputies. Representative Ronaldo Caiado (Democrats/DEM), added a third paragraph to Article 20, establishing that “the person who feels affected in their honour, good reputation or respectability” may request the section offensive to him or her to be excluded in future reproductions of the work.
The amendment does not prohibit works, sanction the arrest of writers or the seizure of books, as happened in the Roberto Carlos case. But rather than a prior censorship, this paragraph might allow public figures to censor excerpts in future editions of previously published works. “This might make the censorship more visible than ever”, wrote columnist Julio Maria to the newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo. “The previous censorship that exists today will turn into a posthumous censorship if the senate does not scrutinise the issue and get it out of this twilight zone.”
“We need to find a balance”, explained Caiado, in a public hearing in the Supreme Court in 2013, arguing that his amendment refers only to the exclusion of libellous, defamatory and untrue excerpts. In 2005, this same representative sued writer and journalist Fernando Morais over a sentence uttered by a source in his book A Toca dos Leões. The writer was ordered to pay £380,000 in compensation for moral damages.
The amendment was added discreetly, but could have a significant impact on the state of free expression in Brazil. As a Croatian media lawyer, quoted in the European Mapping Media Freedom project, points out, “these kinds of laws exist across the world, especially under the guise of protecting against insult. The problem, however, is that often such laws exist for the benefit of politicians and powerful. And when they are even more general, they can be very easily manipulated by those in positions of power to shut down and punish criticism”.
It will now be up to the senate to untie the impasse of the biographies’ law, before a form of censorship is legalised in Brazil just as another is eradicated.
More coverage of Brazil from Index
Brazil: Death of journalist covering protests prompts uproar
Brazil’s World Cup surveillance operation
Brazil: Bills rushed through congress in bid to suppress World Cup protests
Brazil’s opaque World Cup preparations roil protesters
Brazil moves to unmask protesters
This article was posted on July 16, 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
17 Jun 14 | Brazil, Digital Freedom, Digital Freedom Statements, News and features
This is the fourth and final in a series of articles based on the Index report: Brazil: A new global internet referee?
With the adoption of a progressive legislation on internet rights, Brazil is taking the lead in digital freedom. Digital technologies have provided new opportunities for freedom of expression in the country, but have also come with new attempts to regulate content and strong inequalities between those with and without access to the internet. Old problems like violence against journalists, media concentration and the influence of local political leaders over judges and other public agents persist.
As internet penetration and access to the internet via mobile phone is increasing in the country, it is interesting to see how digital inclusion has created a new space for the exchange of ideas and reshaped the wider debate on freedom of expression. The emergence of independent media such as the collective Midia Ninja demonstrates the impact of digital on the offline free speech environment.
Brazil must now build on Marco Civil to ensure the respect of the right to freedom of expression online and offline, and promote internet rights in the international sphere.
In order for Brazil to provide a safe space for digital freedom and ensure the promise of Marco Civil is met in reality, Index on Censorship offers the following recommendations:
At the international level, Brazil should:
- Use its leadership to further promote a free and fair internet by continuing to publicly advocate for fundamental internet principles such as net neutrality, user privacy and freedom of expression in international forums
- Ensure that civil society organisations are deeply involved in the discussions and decision-making process on global internet governance, and that the outcome of international debates adequately reflect their recommendations
- Resist intervention by powerful lobby groups and governments to skew the outcome of multistakeholder gatherings
- Refuse to adopt or sign up to repressive measures and/or international agreements favouring internet censorship, top-down approach of internet governance and tighter government control of the internet
At the domestic level, Brazil should:
- Reform defamation and privacy laws to ensure they are not used to prosecute journalists and citizens who express legitimate opinions in online debates, posts and discussions
- Provide proper training to the judiciary and law enforcement agencies on defamation and other freedom of expression-related issues
- Introduce clear guidelines regarding civil defamation lawsuits, especially in regard to the use of content takedown and the setting of indemnification amounts
- Ensure that all cases of killings and other forms of violence against media professionals and human rights defenders are effectively, promptly and independently investigated, and those responsible are held accountable
- Be more transparent about the ongoing work around privacy legislation, including the Data Protection Bill
- Pursue their efforts in promoting digital access and inclusion to all Brazilians by expanding the Digital Cities programme and stick to the target of ensuring 40 million households or 68% of the population are able to access broadband by the end of 2014 as part of the National Broadband Plan
The full report is available in PDF: [English] | [Portuguese]
Part 1 Towards an internet “bill of rights” | Part 2 Digital access and inclusion | Part 3 Brazil taking the lead in international debates about internet governance | Part 4 Conclusions and recommendations
This article was posted on 16 June 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
![Read the full report in PDF: [English] | [Portuguese]](https://www.indexoncensorship.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/brazil-cover.jpg)