24 Jul 13 | Brazil, Politics and Society
A Brazilian sociologist says he was threatened at gunpoint in Rio de Janeiro last week, after he gave a newspaper interview criticising police action in recent popular demonstrations.
Paulo Baía says he left home around seven o’clock last Friday, 19 July, to take a walk in Flamengo Park, when two armed men wearing balaclavas and sunglasses put him into an unmarked car with tinted windows.
“They told me I should give no more interviews like the one I gave today to Globo and that I shouldn’t say anything else ever again about the Military Police because, if I did, it would be the last interview I would give in my life”, Baía told Globo newspaper.
Globo printed Baía’s interview on the same day he was flash kidnapped. In the article, the sociologist from Rio de Janeiro’s Federal University (UFRJ) analysed groups that acted more violently during demonstrations that happened days before at Leblon, a higher-class area in the south side of Rio. He was critical of police action towards protesters.
“Police saw crimes being committed and did nothing. Police’s message was this: now I’m going to beat everybody up”, he told Globo on the interview.
Baía says he was eventually left at Cinelândia, a public square in Rio, 20 minutes after he was kidnapped. He says guns were not pointed at him, but his kidnappers made them visible the entire time.
The sociologist is wary of alleging that his kidnappers are policemen, as he says that they may be imposters attempting to make a case against the military police.
Later on Friday Baía met Rio State attorney general Marfran Vieira, who said that both the Public Ministry and the Civil Police would check images taken by CCTV cameras at Flamengo Park and Cinelândia.
“This was an attempt to shut down an important voice in the political scene and ends up harming the democratic state based on the rule of law”, said Vieira.
Popular demonstrations that started on early June recently became more violent in Rio, where some protesters have targeted journalists and media outlets, and have also vandalised businesses.
30 Apr 13 | Newswire
Reporters of Radio Racyja, Henadz Barbarych and Aliaksandr Yarashevich, spent three days of administrative arrest after they had been detained in Minsk on 26 April.
The independent journalists covered an annual street action of the Belarusian opposition, The Chernobyl Way, that commemorates the anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster of 1986.
The journalists were detained by plain-clothed police officers on Friday evening on their way to editorial office. The police claimed the journalists “behaved in a suspicious way” and allegedly forcibly resisted detention. Barbarych and Yarashevich spent the weekend in a detention centre and stood an administrative trial on Monday. Judge Kiryl Paluleh sentenced them to three days of arrest each for “unlawful resistance to legitimate claims of police officers”, despite the fact accusations against the reporters were only based on contradictory evidence from the police.
The journalists denied the charges, saying the plain-clothed officers failed to present valid police IDs and they did not resist their detention.
Both reporters were released on Monday evening.
“I think the reason for our detention were pictures we made. Our cameras were confiscated, and given back to us with all the photos deleted,” Henadz Barbarych told Radio Liberty.
Detentions and physical violence of the police against journalists during street rallies have become quite common in Belarus.
Several civil activists were also detained on 26 April. Short-term detentions were aimed at preventing activists of a Belarusian ecological and anti-nuclear movement from participating in the rally. Three more activists were detained after The Chernobyl Way; one of them, Ihar Truhanovich, was beaten by the police. Iryna Arahouskaya and Aksana Rudovich, journalists of the Nasha Niva newspaper, who were filming the beating of Truhanovich, were also detained for about an hour, but later released.
“The authorities of Belarus keep demonstrating its brutality. They act with impunity for citizens of Belarus to keep living in fear. Such illogical and unnecessary violence serves as a signal to the society that even if the government sanctions events, they don’t endorse them, and people should be afraid to participate in any oppositional street actions,” says Uladzimir Matskevich, the Chair of the Coordination Committee of the Belarus National Civil Society Platform.
30 Apr 13 | News and features
Reporters of Radio Racyja, Henadz Barbarych and Aliaksandr Yarashevich, spent three days of administrative arrest after they had been detained in Minsk on 26 April.
The independent journalists covered an annual street action of the Belarusian opposition, The Chernobyl Way, that commemorates the anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster of 1986.
The journalists were detained by plain-clothed police officers on Friday evening on their way to editorial office. The police claimed the journalists “behaved in a suspicious way” and allegedly forcibly resisted detention. Barbarych and Yarashevich spent the weekend in a detention centre and stood an administrative trial on Monday. Judge Kiryl Paluleh sentenced them to three days of arrest each for “unlawful resistance to legitimate claims of police officers”, despite the fact accusations against the reporters were only based on contradictory evidence from the police.
The journalists denied the charges, saying the plain-clothed officers failed to present valid police IDs and they did not resist their detention.
Both reporters were released on Monday evening.
“I think the reason for our detention were pictures we made. Our cameras were confiscated, and given back to us with all the photos deleted,” Henadz Barbarych told Radio Liberty.
Detentions and physical violence of the police against journalists during street rallies have become quite common in Belarus.
Several civil activists were also detained on 26 April. Short-term detentions were aimed at preventing activists of a Belarusian ecological and anti-nuclear movement from participating in the rally. Three more activists were detained after The Chernobyl Way; one of them, Ihar Truhanovich, was beaten by the police. Iryna Arahouskaya and Aksana Rudovich, journalists of the Nasha Niva newspaper, who were filming the beating of Truhanovich, were also detained for about an hour, but later released.
“The authorities of Belarus keep demonstrating its brutality. They act with impunity for citizens of Belarus to keep living in fear. Such illogical and unnecessary violence serves as a signal to the society that even if the government sanctions events, they don’t endorse them, and people should be afraid to participate in any oppositional street actions,” says Uladzimir Matskevich, the Chair of the Coordination Committee of the Belarus National Civil Society Platform.
16 Apr 13 | Newswire
David Fowler / Shutterstock.com
There are some fears that the funeral procession of Margaret Thatcher tomorrow could turn into a debacle of protest and arrest.
The Observer reported on Sunday that Commander Christine Jones, the police officer who will be in charge on the day, “warned” that police officers will have the power to arrest protesters under Section 5 of the Public Order Act on the day.
This isn’t exactly unusual; after all, the police always have the law at their disposal.
But it’s worth noting how problematic Section 5 of the Public Order Act can be, particularly in situations like tomorrow’s.
The section makes it an offence to engage in language (including writing on a placard) or behaviour “within the hearing or sight of a person likely to be caused harassment, alarm or distress thereby”.
This has led to problems for free speech and free protest in the past, from the arrest of Christian preachers to the conviction of Al Muhajiroun poppy-burner Emdadur Choudhury.
Considering the mix of Thatcher fans, tourists and events junkies who will line the route of the funeral cortege tomorrow along with the expected protesters, it is conceivable that any protest could be construed as likely to cause “harassment, alarm or distress” to someone. The issue is whether that likelihood alone enough to cause the police to intervene? Or should the deployment of the Public Order Act be limited to times when there are genuine threats to public order?
Tomorrow’s funeral, while not a “state funeral” as such, is most certainly a public event.
And being a public event, it will be open to protest: the police officers on duty tomorrow will need to bear in mind that they have a duty not just to safeguard the funeral proceedings, but to safeguard free expression too.
Padraig Reidy is senior writer at Index on Censorship. @mePadraigReidy
