June 7, 2023

09:06

Adrisa De Góes – Amazon Agency

MANAUS (AM) – Brazil celebrates this Wednesday, 7th, the National Press Freedom Day, a date that gained meaning in 1977, when journalists led a manifesto for the end of censorship imposed by the military dictatorship. After 46 years of this historic day, the defense of the integrity of professionals continues to be at the center of the class struggle.

Last year, 558 aggressions against journalists and media, as well as the press in general, were registered in the “Monitoring Attacks on Journalists in Brazil”, conducted annually by the Brazilian Association of Investigative Journalism (Abraji). The number is 23% higher than the records reported in the year 2021.

Read more: Observatory of Violence against Journalists will be attended by the press and communication vehicles

In 2022, with the general elections in the country, political violence against communicators represented 31.6% of the cases registered in Abraji’s monitoring, which are directly linked to electoral coverage. Of this total, 56.7% were committed by rulers, parliamentarians, state agents and public employees.

Another section of the survey shows that, during the presidential campaign, 51 aggressions were related to candidates for the Presidential seat. The report shows that former president Jair Bolsonaro (PL) was the candidate who attacked the press the most. He and his sons who have a mandate are the cause of 41.6% of the attacks in the year. As a result of Bolsonarism, antidemocratic acts and acts contrary to the results of the polls were the cause of 12% of the cases of aggression against press professionals.

Resistance

One of the victims of attacks in the exercise of her profession was the journalist from AMAZON AGENCY, Ívina Garcia. At the end of last year, when protesters were camping in front of the Amazon Military Command (CMA), she denounced the financial backers of the camps, which remained for about two months and were asking for the annulment of the elections.

After three years in the business, she says that of the three times she was harassed because of the reports she wrote, this was the most intense and long-lasting. There were almost 30 days of harassment through social networks and personal photos that circulated in Bolsonarist groups, accompanied by threatening messages against the journalist.

“I started receiving threats first on Twitter, then they migrated to my Instagram, Facebook and even found out my WhatsApp number and kept sending me curses and threats. This had very negative repercussions”, she says.

“I was afraid, yes, but I was more afraid for my family who had nothing to do with the situation”, she reveals. Ívina also points out that the attacks were not aimed at her work, but at her physical appearance.

Abraji points out, in the monitoring done during the election year, that 61.2% of the cases of offenses to journalists were stigmatizing speeches.

Challenge

Another AMAZON AGENCY journalist Gabriel Abreu also felt the impacts of doing journalism in the Amazon. During the period in which he was covering the Yanomami crisis and illegal mining in Boa Vista (RR), he was harassed by miners in the region and had his WhatsApp number disclosed in groups on the network, which generated a series of threats.

“At the first moment, you get scared. Fear, fear, I didn’t feel it. Then, that was the fuel to say that I was on the right track, in a state where half the population is against indigenous people and supports destruction and exploitation, everyone who stands up against that is threatened in some way. So the focus is not to give up”, he highlights.

Despite the threats, the journalist says he is not thinking of giving up his profession and feels motivated to continue working on behalf of the Amazon through the press. “I am passionate about the journalism that I do in the Amazon. We live in the most privileged region on planet earth. Everyone wants to know what’s going on in the Amazon, and being the spokesperson for what happens here is a challenge”, he said.

Read more: Report points out 62 attacks on journalists in the Amazon since the deaths of Bruno and Dom