CENSORSHIP: CENARIUM MAGAZINE’s news team is followed and intimidated in antidemocratic camp

Ívina Garcia – from Cenarium Magazine

MANAUS – The team of CENARIUM MAGAZINE was prevented from reporting on the morning of Wednesday, 22, for having been followed and intimidated by protesters who are part of the antidemocratic camp mounted in front of the Amazon Military Command (CMA), west zone of the capital.

The acts are considered antidemocratic because they call for federal intervention to stop a legitimately constituted government, according to Law No. 14,197, known as the Law of the Democratic State of Law. Demonstrators contest the result of the presidential election and call for the Armed Forces to act to disrupt Lula‘s inauguration.

Article 359-L of the law states that it is a crime to “attempt, by use of violence or grave threat, to abolish the democratic rule of law by preventing or restricting the exercise of constitutional powers,” and Article 359-M states that it is a punishable offence to “attempt to depose, by means of violence or grave threat, the legitimately constituted government“.

When arriving at the location to record how the movement is a few days before the inauguration of the new president-elect, photojournalist Ricardo Oliveira was approached by five men, who called him a “coward” and said he should not be there.

Two military police officers accompanied the action and told the team to leave the place. When seeking shelter in the premises of a shopping mall in the area, the reporter noticed that he was followed by a young man wearing a military cap and black shirt.

This is not the first time that CENARIUM suffers censorship attempts, the reporter Ívina Garcia has already been the target of insults and death threats for a report published in November about the camp.

Camping

The camp in front of the CMA has been set up since November 2 following the election results that gave victory to Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (PT) and sealed the defeat of Jair Bolsonaro (PL) at the ballot box. Dissatisfied, Bolsonaro supporters remain camped in front of barracks across Brazil. In Amazonas, Bolsonarists have remained in the CMA for 52 days – almost two months.

At the beginning of the protest, the protesters did not lean on the pro-Bolsonaro discourse, using the idea of “saving Brazil”. Now, less than ten days before the end of the current president’s mandate, they are calling for “Military Intervention with Bolsonaro in Power”.

Target of decisions by the Federal Justice, through Judge Jaiza Fraxe, the anti-democratic camp has changed its tone. Where before there were only banners calling for federal intervention and “SOS Armed Forces”, now the name of President Bolsonaro appears, followed by “Article 142”.

The jurist Ives Gandra Martins, Professor Emeritus of Mackenzie University, a consultant who worked in the drafting of the 1988 Constitution, explained in an article published on the Conjur website, that if Jair Bolsonaro calls upon the Armed Forces as a moderating power, they “are called upon to ensure law and order, not to break them”.

Gandra pointed out that the risk of disruption comes from the action of people or entities concerned with destabilizing the State. In this case, it would be up to the commanders of the three Armed Forces to restore law and order, but punctually, that is, “at that broken point, without shaking the democratic institutions.