MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Brazilian Supreme Court lifts ban on political candidates and parties satire

Last Sunday comedians and comics took to the streets to protest the 1997 law

Brazil's Supreme Court suspended starting Friday the rule banning radio and television comedians and programs from producing political satire about parties and their candidates in the October election.

The preliminary decision was made late Thursday, when Supreme Court judge Ayres Britto ruled that the 1997 law does not warrant censorship of Brazilian media. That would be unconstitutional, the judge said.

He further argued that the electoral process is not a state of emergency, the only situation that would warrant restricting freedom of opinion.

Britto's decision was a response to a request filed Wednesday by the Brazilian Association of Radio and Television (Abert).

The 1997 law establishes fines of up to 60,000 dollars for media that broadcast any “audio or video resources which in any way degrade or ridicule candidates, political parties or coalitions” in an election.

Brazil's comics held a protest Sunday in Rio de Janeiro, to demand that the law be repealed.

“We do not abide by laws that are there to serve you. On the contrary, it is you who make and monitor laws to serve us. And we don't want this law. You, our elected officials, can repeal it,” Danilo Gentili, of the political humour programme CQC, said in an open letter to Congress and to Electoral Justice officials last week.

The Supreme Court's decision would become permanent after the court's plenum evaluates the decision at an unspecified date.