Brazil: Brazil abolishes 1967 media censorship law

Brazzil Magazine reports Brazil's Supreme Court voted by seven votes to four to end a repressive press law which had been adopted under the 1964-1985 military dictatorship. The 1967 legislation had allowed prison sentences to be handed down to journalists for what they wrote.

House representative Miro Teixeira was behind the 2007 call on the STF to revoke the February, 9, 1967 law that provided for prison sentences for press offenses.

The court had on February 27, 2008, suspended on an initial six-month basis - that was extended the following September - the application of 20 of the 77 articles of the law. These were the most repressive ones relating to "defamation, "insult", and "denigration, all of which meant an increase of sentences already laid down under criminal law.

It was the articles made void by the 1988 Constitution that most fueled the debate. Some judges on the STF wanted to keep them for use in "protection of private life, and for people's reputation and image".

Published by Mike Hitchen, Mike Hitchen Consulting
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