Entities for the defense of freedom of expression and the fight against corruption repudiated on Thursday (20) the persecution and exposure of personal data of the journalist and columnist of UOL Thiago Herdy on an apocryphal site published on the Wix platform.
Withdrawal from the air by the platform itself, the site brought photographic records of the reporter’s routine, confidential data from his income tax and false information about the motivations of his work as a journalist.
The text mentions reports produced in partnership with other UOL journalists on signed during the first management of Mayor Ricardo Nunes (MDB).
“The Abraji (Brazilian Investigative Association) expresses its extreme repudiation of the case, which proves to be a serious attempt to intimidate and censor the work of the journalist when he fulfilled his mission to investigate the use of public resources,” wrote the entity’s board.
For Abraji, “it is urgent that public authorities investigate the case, identify the principals of the persecution strategy and stop the threats suffered by the reporter.”
For Katia Brembatti, president of the association, the case should be treated as an attack on press work.
“This is not a personal thing, but the disclosure of information from a professional, with a clear interest in provoking reactions, such as disturbing their routine and exposing it to threats,” said the journalist, for whom it is necessary to identify and punish both those responsible and the financiers of the site with intimidating content.
The executive director of the Brazilian NGO Office Transparency International, Bruno Brandão, classified as “extremely serious actions against the UOL journalist and his family, in clear and cowardly retaliation against his investigative reports.”
Brandão says that the reports “reveal very strong evidence of corruption in the São Paulo City Hall” and that international transparency “will reinforce his support and visibility to the work of UOL reporter and columnist.”
The organization will ask authorities “an in -depth and interference -free investigation to identify and punish criminals who have tried to defame Herdy.”
“Investigative journalism is a key element of combating corruption, and its free exercise is a central pillar of any democracy,” concluded Brandão.
Inac (Institute not accepted corruption) classified the publication of the site as “an act of retaliation” for the work of the journalist on evidence of corruption in the municipality of São Paulo.
“Freedom of the press is a fundamental guarantee with which it does not transide, as is the right to access information, which the journalist is the fundamental instrument in a democracy, where the principle of publicity prevails,” the Executive Board and the Institute’s Superior Council said in a statement.
For the organization, the facts reported by the UOL reports, “which deserve immediate and rigorous investigations by the Public Prosecution Service and the Comptroller General of the Municipality, are” inconceivable. “
Mayor says that if he needs to be investigated
During a public agenda on Thursday morning, Mayor Ricardo Nunes said he did not know that the journalist had been persecuted and exposed on the internet.
“If this happened, I think we need to be sympathetic, I know this now for you. […] To be supportive and not to admit and not to allow in any event that any kind of person pursues, even more journalist in the exercise of their work, “said the mayor.
For Nunes, if the episode is confirmed, it is “a criminal act.” “The police have to investigate and punish, of course,” he said.
The website with intimidatory content mentions reports published by the journalist and colleagues of UOL about evidence of emergency contracts of the São Paulo City Hall.
It also brings false data on the motivation of the case stories: “Thiago Herdy had a mission to fulfill. Your target? The municipal management of São Paulo,” write the authors of the text, unidentified.
The mayor said he understood that there is no relationship between the episode and its administration. “I see no relationship with my administration, it has no sense.”
Guilherme Boulos (PSOL), federal deputy and former candidate for São Paulo City Hall, wrote in his profile of social network X that the journalist’s routine exhibition is a “very serious” fact.
“My solidarity to Herdy. These threats are unacceptable and need to be cleared,” he wrote.
