President of CPI withdraws in part and maintains photo censorship – 08/29/2023 – Power

The president of the CPI on the 8th of January, deputy Arthur Maia (União Brasil-BA), decided to retreat and this Tuesday (29) overturned the veto for the press to disclose confidential documents received by the commission.

He maintained, however, excerpts from the act that censored the press, edited the day before, such as a ban on the publication of photos of private conversations.

Maia also preserved the decision to withdraw the credential of photographer Lula Marques, from EBC (Empresa Brasil de Comunicação), who last week released an image of conversations in the cell phone application of Senator Jorge Seif (PL-SC).

The president of the CPI said that the veto to divulge confidential documents “extrapolates our condition”.

“Many times the press publishes, and not only in this CPI, documents that are confidential, and these documents gain publicity and you don’t know the origin. Therefore, I cannot blame this journalist. It would be something wrong”, said Maia.

The deputy edited an act on Monday (28) that censures the work of journalists who accompany the CPI. The text prohibits press professionals from capturing “images [na CPI] private third-party content without authorization”. This excerpt was maintained by Maia.

He withdrew the part of the act that prohibited the publication of information “private or classified as confidential”. Maia cited the right to privacy to keep the veto on photographs of “private content”.

Censorship was imposed days after Maia decided to bar photojournalist Lula Marques from entering the commission’s plenary session.

The journalist had taken a photo of Senator Jorge Seif’s (PL-SC) cell phone screen, in which a journalist questions him about the Civil Police operation against Jair Bolsonaro’s (PL) son 04, Jair Renan, launched last Thursday (24). Lula Marques published the images on social networks.

Several press vehicles have already released news based on documents received by the CPI and classified as confidential. The breaches of secrecy approved by the CPI showed, for example, that former President Bolsonaro received R$ 17.2 million via transaction for Pix.

The press has also used photos of private conversations in news. In February, the report by Sheet caught in a photo the image of Senator Ciro Nogueira’s (PP-PI) cell phone screen showing that the president of the Central Bank, Campos Neto, was still a member of a WhatsApp group called “Bolsonaro Ministers”.

In the act on Monday, Maia defined the “duties” of journalists in the CPI room as “dressing in a way that is compatible with the place where they carry out their activities” and “acting with courtesy and discipline”, among other points.

According to the text, the request for accreditation will be evaluated by the president of the CPI or “by whoever he determines”. It is still up to Maia to “deliberate on all administrative appeals and in cases of accreditation not provided for in this act”.

Despite the devices established by Maia, both the Senate and the Chamber have their own accreditation systems. Professionals accredited by the Legislative Houses have guaranteed access to commissions and other dependencies of Congress to carry out their functions.

The deputy’s decision to bar the EBC photographer from the CPI generated a reaction from representative entities of the press. The ABI (Brazilian Press Association) considered Maia’s decision “illegal and unconstitutional” and also described it as authoritarian, in an open letter released this Friday (25).