The Violations of Freedom of Expression report was prepared by the Brazilian Radio and Television Association (Abert).
Such content showed that the number of press and media professionals exposed to nonlethal violence increased by 21.69 percent compared to 2020. In 2021 there were 230 and in the previous calendar 189.
Likewise, according to Abert, the number of attacks on reporters has doubled in 2021 compared to the previous year, from four to eight. Firearms were used in 50 percent of the cases.
Regarding the killings of journalists, 2021 was the second year in which no event was recorded since Abert’s report was compiled in 2012. The first time happened in 2019.
Nevertheless, the association recalled that broadcaster Weverton Rabelo Fróes was murdered last year. The offense was not calculated, as it is still being determined.
The study also notes that a report by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) warned that 55 media workers would be murdered worldwide in 2021.
The report, for its part, shows another investigation by the Bites company.
The research shows that in 2021 there were four thousand virtual attacks on journalistic work every day; 167 per hour; three per minute.
A year earlier there were 7.9 thousand attacks per day, 331 per hour, six per minute. The exhibition considers “insults, derogatory and derogatory statements to the trade press to be attacks.
Brazil registered half a million abusive messages against the press on the social network Twitter between March and June 2021, and almost 20 percent for reports of possible automated behavior, revealed another thesis published last September.
The NGO Reporters Without Borders and the Brazilian Institute of Technology and Society conducted the investigation to find out the extent of these attacks on Twitter, a network with about 20 million active users in the country and a strong presence of press professionals.
The research also showed higher engagement with user groups supporting President Jair Bolsonaro’s administration on the networks.
A statement by the study’s authors indicates that “the major communications groups considered critical of the government and women journalists were the preferred targets of the attacks.”
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