The Attorney General of the Republic, Augusto Aras, defended to the STF (Supreme Court) the rejection of the request that President Jair Bolsonaro (no party) be obliged to adopt measures to ensure the work of the press and the integrity of professionals covering acts of the federal government.
The opinion is a response to the action presented by the Sustainability Network party. The party filed the suit with the Supreme Court shortly after journalists accompanying the chief executive’s visit to Rome at the end of October were attacked while supporters shouted “Globolixo” and the president’s advisers watched impassively.
Aras stated that the lawsuit should be closed because the legend only made a “generic request” to the STF.
The demonstration was sent to court on Monday (13), a day after journalists from TVs Bahia and Aratu, affiliates of Rede Globo and SBT, respectively, were attacked by security guards and a supporter of Bolsonaro in Itamaraju, in Bahia.
The action is under the report of Minister Dias Toffoli. In it, the Network asks the Supreme Court to force Bolsonaro to present a security plan that guarantees the physical integrity of the journalists who accompany the president, including the displacement of professionals from the Institutional Security Office for coordination and responsibility for carrying out the plan.
The acronym also requires that Bolsonaro be prevented from holding public demonstrations that encourage verbal or physical attacks on the press, under penalty of being fined R$ 100,000.
The attorney general of the Republic, however, harshly criticized the action and said that the correct thing would be for the STF to reject it.
He stated that the Network “limited itself to quoting journalistic stories about the subject”, referring to the episode in late October in Europe.
“In the case of the verbal and physical attacks on journalists, allegedly occurred in Rome, during the participation of the President of the Republic in the G20 summit, although the facts are described in more detail, the applicant did not undertake to attach to the file the proof of violation of the fundamental precept'”, he said.
Aras mentioned a statement by the federal government sent to the court in which it is alleged that “there is a great inconsistency, a lack of information” from the journalists who were attacked.
The attorney general resorted to technical arguments about the type of procedure chosen by the Network to defend the rejection of the case.
He said that it would be “essential” to produce evidence about what happened to analyze the action, but recalled that it is “unfeasible” in this type of process to adopt measures that would help clarify the facts.
According to him, the Supreme Court “is not particularly equipped, in this kind of action, with the mechanisms for producing evidence considered for other procedural paths”.
Regarding the request for Bolsonaro to be vetoed from attacking the press, Aras says that the action is unnecessary “because the legal system already contemplates such a prohibition”.
“Thus, the allegation of non-compliance with a fundamental precept does not lend itself to obtaining a court order to prevent the President of the Republic from attacking – verbally or physically – press professionals”.
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