Six organizations defending freedom of expression and the press asked to participate, as amici curiae (friends of the court), in an action in which the MPF (Federal) in Rio de Janeiro accuses the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God of .
The case deals with the reaction to a publication by Cuenca in 2020 on social media, when he wrote: “Brazilians will only be free when the last Bolsonaro is hanged in the guts of the last pastor of the Universal Church”.
The comment was a paraphrase of a quote by Jean Meslier, a Frenchman from the early 18th century. The original text said that “man will only be free when the last king is hanged in the guts of the last priest.”
The journalist was the target of more than one. The movement, according to the MPF, was organized and promoted by Universal with pastors to make defense difficult. The church denies it.
The Public Ministry argued that this type of conduct encourages mass judicialization against journalists and generates an inhibiting effect on press freedom. The body asked for the church to be ordered to pay R$5 million in compensation for collective moral damages.
The case is being processed in the 17th Federal Court of Rio de Janeiro.
Initially, judge Eugenio Rosa de Araújo understood that it was not up to the Federal Court to judge the case, a decision later reviewed by the TRF-2 (Federal Regional Court of the 2nd Region) to recognize jurisdiction and determine the progress of the process.
Universal maintained that it was not up to the MPF to have proposed the action and that the church could not be sued. The discussion about legitimacy is still open.
In the petition to enter the process as amici curiae (when they are not part of the action, but make themselves available to participate on a technical basis), the entities said that judicial harassment against journalists generates self-censorship among professionals, who begin to fear judicial reprisals when covering topics of public interest, which impoverishes the democratic debate.
The request is signed by the Tornavoz Institute, Abraji (Brazilian Investigative Association), Article 19, Fenaj (National Federation of Journalists), the Vladimir Herzog Institute and Repórteres Sem Fronteiras.
According to the organizations, the Federal Public Ministry’s action does not just deal with the case of a journalist, but rather the collective rights of society as a whole. “Holding perpetrators of judicial harassment responsible for the damages suffered by the community is not only a reparatory measure, but also an pedagogical and dissuasive one”, they say.
“This is the importance of this entire discussion”, says lawyer Taís Gasparian, from Instituto Tornavoz, one of the petition’s signatories. “The harasser corrupts the logic of the civil process or the legitimate interest of citizens in seeking justice to silence journalists and media outlets.”
