The judge of the 11th Criminal Court of Recife Andréa Calado da Cruz ordered the journalist’s preventive detention Ricardo César do Vale Antunes, from “Blog do Ricardo Antunes”, at the request of the State Public Ministry. The information for this Saturday, 27th, is from the newspaper The state of Sao Paulo.
Antunes is a defendant for defamation and insult, in “criminal continuity”, against Flávio Roberto Falcão Pedrosa, prosecutor. In addition to his detention, the magistrate canceled his passports and blocked his social media profiles.
The journalist did not attend the hearing of the case. The defense stated that he is on vacation in Spain and would not have access to quality internet to participate in the remote session. He is out of the country and has not been arrested.
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Antunes, in a statement, stated that he was a victim of “censorship”. His defense said that he will represent against the judge at the National Council of Justice for abuse of authority. According to Rubia Torres, the journalist’s lawyer, the decision is a “legal exaggeration” and does not have “the slightest legal support”.
“The constitutionally guaranteed freedom of expression cannot be used as a safe-conduct for the commission of criminal offenses, nor does it authorize the offense to the honor of others”, argues the judge in an excerpt of the decision.
The judge alleged that the journalist failed to comply with a provisional order that obligated him to immediately remove publications about the prosecutor until the end of the process.
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Although two of the news items are still indexed in Google searches, the content of the reports is unavailable on Antunes’ blog. There was also a publication in stories of Instagram which, according to the defense, was old and went unnoticed by the team that manages the Recife journalist’s networks.
“When searching on the search site ‘Google’ with the name ‘Flávio Falcão’, it appears that the access link for publication remains available with the following description ‘Prosecutor Flávio Falcão and judge André Carneiro in the Judiciary lobby’ , in addition to the publication on the ‘YouTube’ channel called ‘Blog Ricardo Antunes’ in which a video is available containing photos of prosecutor Flávio Falcão and judge André Carneiro, with the description ‘Images reveal promiscuous relationship between judge, prosecutor and businessmen of Noronha”, continued the judge.
Tags: Judge orders arrest Recife journalist publications prosecutor
