Judge Alexandre de Moraes, of the Supreme Federal Court (STF) of Brazil, ordered this Monday to remove false news from social networks and internet platforms linking former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva with a criminal group and a murder.
There is a clear perception that the lies spread fraudulently try to induce the electorate to believe that one of the candidates and his party have links to organized crime, “added the magistrate.
The decision refers to publications by supporters of the current president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, who join the Workers Party (IT IS) to the criminal group First Command of the Capital (PCC) and also material that associates the formation of the party with the death of the former mayor of the city of Santo André Celso Daniel, also from the PT.
Moraes will assume the presidency of the Superior Electoral Court (TSE) in August and will command that body during the elections next October, in which Lula da Silva is running as the PT candidate, against Bolsonaro, who is running for re-election.
Judge Alexandre de Moraes is elected president of the electoral justice of Brazil
The judge, in response to an action by the PT, concluded that there is a “reckless spread of false content”, with “a magnitude that can compromise the cleanliness of the electoral process” and “damage values, principles and constitutional guarantees.”
Faced with the allegation of the disseminators of this information, who point to freedom of expression and quote the media, which reported on complaints from justice whistleblowers linking the PT with the PCC, the judge stressed that “freedom of expression , in its positive sense, allows subsequent civil and criminal liability for the content of the broadcast, in addition to the provision of the right of reply”.
However, there is no constitutional permission to restrict freedom of expression in its negative sense, that is, to preemptively limit the content of public debate based on conjecture about the effect that certain content may have on the public,” added Moraes.
In recent weeks, Internet portals linked to the extreme right that support Bolsonaro, his children and sympathizers have published numerous texts accusing Lula da Silva of having links with the PCC, a mafia that originated in prisons and whose tentacles spread spread through several Latin countries. american countries.
These texts were widely disseminated by far-right activists and even by some parliamentarians, including Judge Alexandre de Moraes explicitly cited Senator Flávio Bolsonaroone of the three sons of the Brazilian president.
The judge is also responsible in the STF for a lawsuit filed in 2020 for the alleged existence of networks dedicated to the dissemination of false news and attacks on members of the judiciary in favor of the current government, which among those investigated includes President Bolsonaro himself and three of his sons: senator Flávio, deputy Eduardo Bolsonaro and Rio de Janeiro councilor Carlos Bolsonaro.
According to the voting intention surveys for the October elections, Lula da Silva leads all the preferences of the electorate with close to 45% of the voting intentions, compared to the 30% that the current President would obtain.
Source: Observadora
