Comment by matheusmoreira

Article 220, Paragraph 2 of the official English version says that verbatim

Brazil is a Portuguese-speaking country. Obviously, the brazilian constitution is not written in English. I took the liberty of translating the passage so that people from this community would understand it.

You don't have to believe my translation. Here's a completely independent source I found by searching the web:

https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/Brazil_2017

I will cite and copy the relevant parts from it.

  TITLE II. FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS AND GUARANTEES
  CHAPTER I. INDIVIDUAL AND COLLECTIVE RIGHTS AND DUTIES
  Article 5
  Everyone is equal before the law, with no distinction whatsoever,
  guaranteeing to Brazilians and foreigners residing in the Country
  the inviolability of the rights to life, liberty, equality, security
  and property, on the following terms:

  Term IX.
  expression of intellectual, artistic, scientific, and communication activity
  is free, independent of any censorship or license;

  CHAPTER V. SOCIAL COMMUNICATION
  Article 220
  The expression of thoughts, creation, speech and information,
  through whatever form, process or vehicle,
  shall not be subject to any restrictions,
  observing the provisions of this Constitution.

  Paragraph 1.
  No law shall contain any provision that may constitute
  an impediment to full freedom of the press,
  in any medium of social communication,
  observing the provisions of art. 5°, IV, V, X, XIII and XIV.

  Paragraph 2.
  Any and all censorship of a political, ideological and artistic nature
  is forbidden.

  Term IV.
  manifestation of thought is free, but anonymity is forbidden;

  Term V.
  the right of reply is assured, in proportion to the offense,
  as well as compensation for pecuniary or moral damages
  or damages to reputation;

  Term X.
  personal intimacy, private life, honor and reputation are inviolable,
  guaranteeing the right to compensation for pecuniary or moral damages
  resulting from the violation thereof;

  Term XIII.
  exercise of any job, trade or profession is free,
  observing the professional qualifications that
  the law establishes;

  Term XIV.
  access to information is assured to everyone,
  protecting the confidentiality of sources
  when necessary for professional activity;

Debating these points here on HN, I've had people cite lesser laws than the constitution, I've had people get into incredibly pedantic arguments over how it's ackshually not really censorship when you delete the political opposition's social media, I've had people appeal to authority, I've had people call me a moron. I've never, not once, had them point out to me where in the fuck it says, in the above text, that these judges can do what they're doing.

> Isn't political debate in Brazil sharply divided by selective absolute Constitionalism in any case?

The whole point of my comments is that everything in this country is like that. Even the supreme court judges, whose literal job is to interpret and apply the constitution, are like that. They "selectively and creatively interpret" the constitution.

This country has no laws. Only the whims of these judges.

> Why leap to the defence of bad faith falsehoods spread by bad losers of a democratic election?

I "leap" to the defense of so called "falsehoods" because I see several things wrong with your loaded question.

This country is not a democracy, it's a dictatorship of the judiciary. Calling what we had an "election" is an insult to elections, it was more like a circus. I do not believe for a second that there was fraud in the US elections, but here the "bad losers" had plenty of reasons to doubt the results, among them the blatant political censorship perpetrated by the very same judges involved in this case.

I was going to elaborate on the above points but ultimately decided against it due to how fruitless it usually is. At this point I wouldn't be surprised if I saw HNers defending the communist Venezuelan dictator's "reelection" and calling the opposition he murdered and exiled "bad losers".

> keeping pro-lula Twitter accounts up while censoring conservative ones

Funny. Among the accounts targeted by this judge, not a single one is pro-Lula. Really curious, indeed. Are these guys saints? Are they literally never wrong on the internet?

Not too long ago, one of Lula's ministers "disseminated" some serious "misinformation". She literally said about a hundred million brazilians are starving to death right now. Where's the judge's fact checking? I wonder.

I mean, Lula himself has admitted to journalists that he just makes up statistics on the spot. You'd think he'd be this judge's worst enemy, given how gung-ho he is about "misinformation"... Oh shit, is that the judge attending a barbecue with Lula and his allies? Whew, lad. What do you know?

I didn't read your link, but if political speech has to be honest then I'm sure all of the politicians in Brazil are going to have their speech censored, right?

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