Rede Social de Justiça e Direitos Humanos

Aside from the absence of effective policies for the development of various forms of community communication, the Lula government achieved the record for closures of community radio stations. In the first half of 2006, on average, 10 community radio stations were closed per day, totaling 1,800 closures from January to July of this year. Broadcast grassroots organizations known throughout Brazil, such as Radio Lauza (Bahia), Novo Ar (Rio de Janeiro), Heliopolis (Sao Paulo) and Alternativa (Rio Grande do Norte), were closed in an arbitrary and hostile manner, with their leadership subject to political persecution. Simultaneously – and in opposition to the speed and efficiency of the radio station closures – bureaucratic sluggishness continues in force with regard to evaluation of requests by the communities: more than 8,180 applications for authorization were not even considered, and more than 1,800 have been held up in some Communications Ministry office.

The Human Right to Communication: its recognition grows, but violations remain the rule

Little or nothing changed in the field of communications in 2006. Violations of the human right to communication in Brazil remained constant, always being the rule rather than the exception. The exercise and achievement of free communication, based on the public interest, where all persons and social groups have the right to participate in the production and dissemination of information, are still despised by the Brazilian State.

In spite of a widely negative picture, with political retrenching and maintenance of the privileges of media oligarchies, from 2004 to 2006¹there was an appreciable advance in the first and mandatory stage for granting and putting into effect the right to communication: the recognition by social organizations—and also in a widespread way, by the whole of society—that communication is a human right. Social movements and non-governmental organizations have begun to incorporate democratization of communication and culture as a goal. Today, not only associations and unions linked to media professions, but also groups that fight for human rights, have awoken to the need to jointly face the challenge of advancing the process of democratization of communication and, consequently, democratization of society itself².

Such advance, however, is still insufficient to change the profound process of privatization undergone by the field of communications in Brazil. Contrary to the majority of the world’s countries (and certainly the countries of the Northern Hemisphere), the mass media here was born private, with profit-making goals, and has continued ever since to be based on monopolies. Even today, a single enterprise, the Globo Organizations, with its diverse TV, radio, print media, and Internet vehicles, holds 60% of the television audience and 75% of the advertising budget of the country. In this scenario, the national media oligarchies use all available tools (principally political blackmail) to maintain their conglomerates.

In 2005 and 2006, the final years of the first Lula government, the principal dispute in the field of communications revolved around the Brazilian Digital TV System (SBTVD). Conceived in 2003 as an instrument of social inclusion, democratization of communication, and development of national science and technology, SBTVD suffered a strong blow with the nomination of Helio Costa, ex-employee of the Globo Organizations and known lobbyist for broadcast companies in Congress, as head of the Communications Ministry, in July of 2005.

Within a short time, Costa summarily did away with the room for dialogue with civil society and began to intensely defend, both within and outside of the government, the chief claims of the controllers of the Globo Network, the Marinho family, with regard to digital TV: the adoption of the Japanese standard and licensing of another slice of the frequency spectrum, along which television waves travel, to the current licensees.

Without any policy for democratization of the nation’s principal means of communication³, the federal government, for the meantime, succumbs to the pressure by broadcast corporations, losing an historic opportunity to advance a means of overcoming the profound inequalities in access to the means of communication in the country. Moreover, with publication of Decree 5,820/06, the government consolidated a fact that was known, but never legalized, before: the possession of the frequency spectrum, by its nature a public asset, by the communications enterprises. For this to be possible, national research was buried and flagrant illegalities were committed, including violations of the Federal Constitution. And, within this picture, the horizon became even more far off for achieving a greater balance in the occupation of television space, the diversification of audiovisual production, and the social inclusion of thousands of Brazilians through this new technology.

Broadcast grassroots organizations known throughout Brazil, such as Radio Lauza (Bahia), Novo Ar (Rio de Janeiro), Heliopolis (Sao Paulo) and Alternativa (Rio Grande do Norte), were closed in an arbitrary and hostile manner, with their leadership subject to political persecution. Simultaneously – and in opposition to the speed and efficiency of the radio station closures – bureaucratic sluggishness continues in force with regard to evaluation of requests by the communities: more than 8,180 applications for authorization were not even considered, and more than 1,800 have been held up in some Communications Ministry office.

In comparison, the Lula government authorized the opening of 23 radio stations per month, versus 42 under the Cardoso administration. And, of the broadcast entities authorized under the current government, more than 70% had some type of political patronage involved.

From the legislative point of view, there were no changes. In spite of the creation of an Interministerial Working Group, which suggested a series of modifications to the Community Broadcasting Law, the juridical standards which rule community communication continue to restrict the exercise of this type of broadcasting. Besides limiting the space granted on the spectrum to a single community radio station per locale, and restricting its power and scope, the radio stations are not aided by any financing policy. In addition, current legislation protects other broadcasters from possible invasion of their frequencies by community radio stations, yet does not give any guarantee to community radio stations which may suffer interference by other broadcasters, even if they were authorized by the government. So, the nation’s legislation is very unfavorable to the practice of community broadcasting.

In spite of the small increase in the number of persons who have access to new technologies and, consequently, to the Internet, the country continues to have a digital exclusion index, which clearly translates the abyss separating the poor and the rich in Brazil. In 2006, although some countries had already universalized access to the world computer network, data from the Internet Management Committee (CGIBr) show that the immense majority of the Brazilian population has never accessed it once in their lives. Only 33.3% of Brazilians have already had contact with the Internet at least once in their

lives, while 66.7% have never accessed it. Among the rich, 95% have already accessed the net, while among the poor the number falls to a frightening 12.2%.

Residential access is another index that reveals the massive exclusion of the right to the use of information and communication technologies. Today, more than 85% of the population does not have Internet access at home. However, among the rich, 81.5% access the net at home. Among the poor, only 1.6% has contact with the worldwide computer net from home.

The inequality is also evidenced regionally. While 18.74% of the residences in the Southeast have some type of Internet access, this number falls to 6.15% in the North and to 5.54% in the Northeast. In the Northeast, 77.6% of the populace has never navigated the Internet, independent of their place of access. The reduction in relation to skin color is also evident: among Whites, 39% have already accessed the net. Among Blacks, the number falls to 26.8%, less than for pardos (mixed race) (28%) and even less than for the Indigenous population (29.9%).

Violation of the Right to Information

The electoral process in 2006 was deeply marked by a brutal violation of the right to pluralistic information. During the campaign, the concentration of the means of mass communication in the hands of a few conservative families created a strong inequality in the circulation of opinions and ideas with regard to the different candidates.

Especially in the weeks prior to the first round of elections, the mainstream television stations, newspapers and magazines sought to give the voters a negative evaluation of the Lula government. In opposition, the candidates most closely identified with the elites were shown in a markedly favorable manner⁵.

Within the five principal newspapers of the country, Lula’s candidacy got a negative visibility percentage that was always greater than the positive one. In the last seven weeks prior to first-round voting, of the total articles about Lula’s candidacy, the negative exposure percentile was always above 50%, with the rest divided between neutral and positive mentions. The reverse situation happened with Alckmin’s candidacy.

The climax of the attempt to influence the voters happened on the eve of the first round of elections, with the revelation of photos of money apprehended some days before with members of the Workers Party, which supposedly would be used to buy a dossier against Brazilian Social Democracy Party candidates. With regard to the electoral effect of the revelation of these images, the principal means of communication omitted, in a coordinated manner, a piece of information vital to understanding the incident: the photos were delivered to journalists by a Federal Police chief, disobeying an order from his superiors (regarding secrecy in the investigations). And, on not registering the irregularity of the “leak” of the photos, he committed an ethical fraud and compromised the truth, in the name of partisan political interests.

Episodes such as this are repeated year after year—nationally or regionally—in a systematic violation of the populace’s right to pluralistic information. And as long as

there are no public policies that guarantee the democratization of the means of communication, or that establish a Public Communications System and mechanisms that promote public control of the media, such violations will continue to be the rule in Brazil.

* Diogo Moyses and Cristina Charao are members of Intervozes – Brazil Social Communication Collective.

¹ In 2005 the theme of communication wasn’t a part of this report; for this reason the mention of the 2004 to 2006 period.

² A characteristic example of this appropriation of the communications theme by other movements is the National Meeting on Human Rights, held in August 2005 in Brasilia, the central theme of which was specifically the human right to communication.

³ The central nature of TV in Brazil is evidenced in numbers: although only 8% of the population reads newspapers and 13.9% has access to the Internet, television is present in almost 100% of Brazilian homes, more than the number of residences that have refrigerators.

⁵This can be concluded from the data issued by the Brazilian Media Observation Group – http://www.observatoriomidia.org.br/ - with regard to the press’s work in the 2006 elections.

⁶ The initiating entities behind the Action with the Sao Paulo Regional Office of Citizens’ Rights are Springing Action for Citizenship and Sexual Diversity (ABCDS), Sao Paulo Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Parade Association, Sao Paulo Association for the Advancement of Health and Education (AIESSP), Human Rights Center (CDH), Identity – Homosexual Citizens’ Action Group, and Intervoices – Brazil Social Communication Collective.