Deu na CNN : Large civil movement is repeatedly censored in Fortaleza, Brazil By FApavorada | Posted June 10, 2013 | Fortaleza, Brazil CNN PRODUCER NOTE Fortaleza is Brazil’s 5th largest city and is going to be one of the main host cities of the Confederations Cup, with 3 matches, and the World Cup, with 6 matches to take place there. Until the 1990s, Fortaleza was one of Brazil’s safest state capitals, however since then it went down a spiral of violence. The city had a murder rate of 28 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2000. By 2012, it had grown to 66 murders per 100,000 and, in 2013, it is set to reach more than 75 per 100,000. According to a recent report by the Mexican NGO Consejo Ciudadano para la Seguridad Pública y Justicia Penal, in one decade Fortaleza became the 13th most violent large city in the world. About forty days ago, a movement was started by a small group of middle-class women with no electoral aims. It was given the name “Fortaleza Apavorada” (“Terrified Fortaleza”). Their aim is to gather in one movement citizens of all political and ideological stripes, hence the strictly non-partisan character of the movement. The main concrete objective is to organize a large protest appointed to June 13th, 2 days before the beginning of the Confederations Cup, in front of the Palácio da Abolição, the seat of Ceará State’s government. The group “Fortaleza Apavorada” had a remarkably growing boom of accessions by citizens on the streets and in the internet. The movement’s symbol, an outstretched red hand, spread to many parts of the metropolis. The Facebook group “Fortaleza Apavorada” had reached more than 20,800 memberships in the night of June 5th. Then the worrisome problems began. At the dawn of June 6th, the Facebook group was suddenly and unexplicably removed from that social network. A new group was created right afterwards, and, surprisingly, in little more than 24 hours it surpassed the former number of members and reached, in the afternoon of June 6th, 28,000 supporters (more than 1% of Fortaleza’s entire population!). In that afternoon, the huge group was again unfairly deleted. Something even more grievious happened: the personal accounts of the women who lead “Fortaleza Apavorada” and even those of the group’s moderators were blocked, without any apparent reason. In two days, the movement was censored twice, and in the last coward act someone decided to harm personally those who dared to publicize a peaceful demonstration about Ceará’s calamitous public security policy. Though no hasty and unproved accusations can be made, Brazil’s Federal Public Ministry has announced it will set a procedure to investigate who plotted and realized the double censorship. It’s undeniable the anti-violence civil movement is the target of something or someone powerful, even though the demonstrators have no partisan aims and just want to exercise the minimum that a citizenry can make in any democracy: joining other citizens to protest in favor or against a given public policy. Brazil is still a maturing democracy – its military dictatorship ended only 28 years ago –, and local politics are still more plagued by authoritarian vestiges. The movement held little attention (and opposition) till it began its fast growth, and then someone decided to “intervene” to demobilize Fortaleza’s citizenry. Since June 6th, the “apavorados” (“terrified ones”), as they call themselves, created a new Facebook fanpage, which in 4 days regained and even surpassed the former number of supporters, gathering more than 30,000 citizens. However, in June 10th, the 2nd group “Fortaleza Apavorada”, which had been removed in June 6th, suddenly reappeared and was online for about 20 minutes, when it was removed again. Once more, the personal Facebook accounts of the organizers and moderators of “Fortaleza Apavorada” were blocked by the social network. This time, they were prepared to react accordingly and recover their identity in Facebook. Brazil faces ongoing struggles to consolidate democracy and to force the public authorities to investigate acts against the freedom of expression and to establish public accountability as a rule. Recently the Reporters without Borders issued a report about Brazil’s press situation, The country of 30 Berlusconis, in which they warned: “[In Brazil] The internet is much more subject to censorship and blocking than in the neighboring countries, contrary to the image that Brazil is promoting ahead of the World Cup and Olympics”. The serious situation in Fortaleza clearly shows the whole country still needs to get a grip on how to deal with a free civil society and the diversity of information.
Posted on: Wed, 12 Jun 2013 11:22:39 +0000
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