The court ordered the state of Paraná to pay compensation for moral damages to UOL journalist and columnist Leonardo Sakamoto. The decision was handed down on Tuesday (31) by judge Ana Lúcia Penhabel, from the Special Public Finance Court of Nova Esperança (PR), Maringá region.
“The improper linking of the author’s identification to an arrest warrant issued against a third person constitutes a serious violation of his dignity, honor and freedom”, states the sentence. “Especially given the concrete possibility of undue deprivation of their liberty.”
The Court ordered the Government of Paraná, to which the Civil Police are subordinate, to pay R$10,000 in compensation. The conviction may be appealed.
An inquiry conducted by the Judiciary Branch found that the Paraná police had inserted Sakamoto’s CPF into the criminal record of a 27-year-old woman. When she was convicted of murder, the data was distributed nationally through the National Bank of Penal Measures and Prisons of the CNJ (National Council of Justice).
The police’s action led to the journalist being wanted for murder on national territory.
As a result, he was stopped twice by military police in São Paulo, on June 7 last year, when he was traveling from his home to UOL. This occurred because your vehicle’s license plate, linked to your CPF, was identified by the security system cameras.
In the second approach, the agents pointed rifles and other weapons at him, which would be the protocol for fugitives for homicide. In these cases, police officers are instructed to treat the suspect as if he were highly dangerous.
The then Secretary of Public Security of São Paulo called Sakamoto to check the situation.
Days later, the journalist’s data was excluded from the wanted database, but he was advised to avoid traveling around the city for a while, as cameras could, once again, turn him into a target.
The illegal insertion of the journalist’s data occurred in October 2017 in Paraná. The state Judiciary detected the inclusion and corrected it.
Even so, in subsequent dispatches, Sakamoto’s CPF reappeared, without explanation. None of the 11 digits on the convicted woman’s document match those of the journalist.
“The decision is extremely important, because it does not deny the problem or treat it as if it were a one-off episode. The first step to correcting any problem is to recognize it, which the decision does. Journalistic insecurity will not be resolved today or tomorrow, but recognizing it is the first step towards a fairer society”, says Davi Tangerino, the journalist’s lawyer in the case.
“Only after the State does this does it open a table for discussion and improvements”, he concludes.
At the time the data exchange took place, the journalist was publicly criticizing the conduct of the Lava Jato operation, based in Paraná.
“The conviction is important for governments to show that they are, in fact, concerned about press freedom. The case shows how easy it is to put a journalist’s life at risk with just some data and access to the system,” said Sakamoto.
