ASSOCIAÇÃO BRASILEIRA DE IMPRENSA
Address: Rua Araújo Porto Alegre, 71, Centro, Rio de Janeiro, RJ
Themes: Civil and Corporate Participation; Political-cultural Resistance and Memory
Translated from the Portuguese by Dylan Blau Edelstein
The Brazilian Press Association (ABI) is an institution that sought to defend freedom of expression throughout the military dictatorship, and aided in the transition out of the regime. Notwithstanding its moderate and appeasing positions, the ABI had moments of both alignment with and distance from the government. It stood in defense of the freedom of the press, positioning itself against censorship and the imprisonment of journalists. As such, the ABI, as a civil society organization, was an important actor and articulator in the institutional fights for democracy and individual liberties during the dictatorial regime.
Founded in 1908 by the journalist Gustavo Lacerda, the ABI functioned as a union of sorts for professionals dedicated exclusively to journalism. It advocated for better work conditions and freedom of expression.
Before the construction of its permanent headquarters in Rio de Janeiro’s city center in the 1930s, the association worked out of rented buildings. Construction was initiated by ABI president Herbert Moses — who would remain president for three decades and even see the new building named in his honor. Brazilian presidents Getúlio Vargas and Eurico Gaspar Dutra contributed financially to the construction, despite systematic repression of the press under their governments.
During Moses’s presidency, and particularly after the building’s construction, the ABI hosted and supported diverse events and gatherings to discuss issues regarding freedom of expression. They received cultural groups for conferences, debates, and seminars, independent of their political, religious, and philosophical beliefs.
Source: National Archive, Fundo: Correio da Manhã. Used with permission.
One of the most notable initiatives that the institution supported was the mobilization of artists and intellectuals around the 1955 release of the film Rio, 40 Graus, by Cinema Novo activist Nelson Pereira dos Santos. However, when the association scheduled a private screening to be held at their headquarters, the event was censored and the film banned. Other ideologically diverse events held at the ABI included the launch of the National Democratic Union (UDN) in 1945, and the 5th Congress of the Brazilian Communist Party [05] in 1960. The association also hosted a wide range of prominent figures, such as Luís Carlos Prestes, Robert Kennedy, Che Guevara, Henry Truman, and Fidel Castro.
Before the 1964 coup, the ABI played an important mobilizing role in guaranteeing João Goulart’s assumption of the presidency. However, following the coup, the ABI preferred to remain neutral.
Despite widespread press and media approval of Goulart’s removal from power — and although a significant number of ABI associates belonged to these and other institutions that participated actively in the coup, such as the Institute of Research and Social Studies (IPES) — the ABI itself sought to maintain its “neutrality.” Even before March 1964, newspapers like O Estado de S. Paulo, Folha de S. Paulo, Jornal do Brasil, O Globo, and Correio da Manhã criticized and sought to demoralize the president, forming a united bloc against the Goulart government.
In spite of the censorship that followed the coup, mass media companies continued to support the military regime for nearly a decade. In this context, the ABI positioned itself as critical of the censorship and imprisonment of journalists, defending the physical integrity of jailed reporters and working to free them by utilizing personal contacts within the military government. The association’s appeasing stance is evident in the numerous letters and telegrams exchanged between the ABI president and General Castelo Branco, requesting the liberation of journalists.
From 1966 to 1972, Danton Jobim served as ABI president. Jobim established a closer relationship with the military government under the mandate of army marshal Arthur da Costa e Silva. At the same time that Jobim critiqued violence against the press in his newspaper column Última Hora, he sought out friendly dialogue with the government, even inviting Costa e Silva to lunch at the association’s headquarters. The press called the event “a banquet for the dictator.”
The banquet took place on April 7, 1968, in commemoration of the association’s 60-year anniversary. Among those present at the event were government officials, including President Costa e Silva and Francisco Negrão de Lima, Governor of the State of Guanabara, as well as the owners of the newspapers O Globo, Correio da Manhã, and Jornal do Brasil.
On April 1, one week before the event and nearly three days before the death of the student Edson Luís in Calabouço Restaurant, the Marines invaded the ABI headquarters to prevent it from sheltering activists, journalists, and students during widespread protests in the city center. In response, Danton Jobim wrote a letter to Costa e Silva in which he requested that the Marines immediately vacate the headquarters, simultaneously ending the military occupation and also confirming his presence at the lunch on the 7th.
The presence of the dictator at the ABI headquarters imbued the event with contradiction. Following Danton Jobim’s opening remarks, President Costa e Silva gave a speech on the importance of free expression and freedom of the press. He defended democracy, promised to punish those responsible for violence against students, and affirmed that “he hadn’t considered, didn’t consider, and would never consider issuing new institutional acts,” even citing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
A few months later, the government would put forward the Fifth Institutional Act (AI-5), often called a coup within a coup; its fifth article suspended all political rights. Journalists protested the lunch, demonstrating outside the ABI. They were led by journalists Antônio Callado, Otto Maria Carpeaux, and José Machado, president of the Journalists’ Union. Following the event, Callado disassociated himself from the ABI in a letter to Danton Jobim, stating: “We can’t eat lunch with someone who wants to eat us for lunch.” Hélio Fernandes, another journalist, wrote an article in Tribuna da Imprensa condemning the episode and lambasting Jobim for burying the ABI alive by fraternizing with Governor Negrão de Lima and the dictator Costa e Silva, both violators of the free press.
The ABI reacted by prohibiting the Journalists’ Union from holding meetings at the association, accusing the union of holding politically motivated gatherings and of demonstrating “ingratitude” towards the ABI, which had always welcomed them.
Despite this, the association provided space for diverse members of opposition movements: from gatherings of families of political prisoners, to the 1978 founding assembly of the Brazilian Committee for Amnesty (CBA), to meetings of the Socialist Convergence, and clandestine sessions of the Brazilian Communist Party (PCB), run by ABI members who were also activists in the party.
The direction of the association shifted with the election of President Prudente de Moraes Neto, especially following the death of journalist Vladimir Herzog on October 25, 1975. Following this, the ABI collaborated with other institutions to petition the government for greater investigation into what happened. They also provided the names of other incarcerated journalists without access to means of communication or legal assistance. The ABI and the São Paulo Journalists’ Union also organized funeral masses to occur simultaneously in the two major cities. Archbishop Eugênio Salles prohibited the mass from taking place in any church in the city of Rio de Janeiro, pushing for the ceremony to take place at the ABI headquarters.
From 1979 to 1981, a range of bombings occurred across the country, targeting opposition leaders, civil society organizations, newspaper headquarters, and dozens of newsstands that sold anti-government publications. In August 1976, the seventh floor of the ABI was bombed, destroying a bathroom and causing serious damage to the building’s hydraulic system. Luckily, no one was injured. Pamphlets distributed concurrently attributed the act of terrorism to the Anticommunist Brazilian Association and accused the ABI of being controlled by communists. The attack, they indicated, was a first warning. Yet this was not the first time that something like this had happened. In 1952, there had been an attack on the second floor, where the Federal Trade Commission (COFAP) was located, nearly killing former ABI president Moses.
On August 27, 1980, a bomb went off at the Brazilian Bar Association (OAB) [12] and, on the same day, a third bomb was found on the eighth floor of the ABI building, in the National Trade Superintendence (SUNAB). However, this bomb did not go off, since the secretary to general Glauco de Carvalho, the letter’s intended recipient, did not open the envelope.
Despite this attack, President Geisel asked the ABI to participate in dialogue around political détente, a process which drew in a diverse range of groups and personalities, including: archbishops Eugênio Sales of Rio de Janeiro and Vicente Sherer of Porto Alegre; the president of the National Conference of Bishops of Brazil (CNBB), Aluísio Lorscheider; the president of the National Confederation of Industry (CNI), Domício Veloso; the workers’ leader Luís Inácio da Silva; jurists José Edusrdo do Prado Kelly, Afonso Arinos de Melo Franco, and Miguel Reale; and the president of the OAB [12], Raimundo Faoro. This dialogue was part of the “Portela Mission,” which sought to involve a more moderate branch of civil society in conversations around how to determine an end to the dictatorship and transition to democracy.
In 1983, in response to the apprehension of newspapers and arresting of journalists who had protested the end of the National Security Law, the ABI president Barbosa Lima Sobrinho spoke publicly against violence and imprisonment. That same year, the ABI and other institutions began a movement for the formation of a national constituent assembly and for direct presidential elections.
In the 1980s, the ABI building was selected by the National Institute of Historical and Artistic Heritage (Iphan) for its architectural and historical value, particularly for its link to the fight for free expression and democratic political movements. The ABI continues to defend political reform in the country, creating a commission to coordinate the development of a campaign to call together a national constituent assembly.
In 2012, with the creation of the National Truth Commission (CNV), the ABI hosted diverse events that brought together persecuted politicians, journalists, historians, and activists.