Portugal

Portugal 🇵🇹 is a European country which practices Christianity. It is a member of the European Union. Censorship was persistent in the country during the rule of the prime ministers Antonio de Oliveira Salazar (1932-1968) and Marcello Caetano (1968-1974). Portugal now ranks among the highest in the world for press freedom according to Reporters Without Borders.

General censorship

One of the achievements of the Carnation Revolution in 1974 was freedom of expression, which also quickly led critics to protest against the "excess of liberty" that was taking hold of newspapers, magazines, television, radio and cinema. Movies that had until then been forbidden started being screened, some of them many years after being filmed. Social and political satire became common in television and theater, a prime example being teatro de revista. Freedom of expression and information as well freedom of the press are warranted by the Portuguese Constitution of 1976 in its text, including these freedoms once again. Following revisions of the constitutional text have extended freedom of expression to all the media.

Although Portugal ranks in the top 10 for press freedom according to RSF, the same organisation has noted that "several journalists were threatened and insulted during a protest against the government's coronavirus restrictions."

Book censorship

Censorship of the 21 de julho de 1970 "edition of the "Notícias da Amadora" newspaper by using the infamous lápis azul (blue pencil).

During Estado Novo, The Regulamento dos Serviços de Censura (Censorship Services Regulations) was adopted in November of 1936 but was, not published in the Diário do Governo (the official journal). From then on, anyone who wanted to establish a newspaper or magazine would have to require a permit from the direction of the Service. To prevent white spaces from appearing in newspapers' pages, as had happened during the First Republic, the Estado Novo would force them to completely reorganize the pages before printing, so that any trace of censorship was disguised. In addition to this, editors were sometimes forced to submit pre-press pages to the censorship commission, which would make the maintaining of a paper unbearably expensive, driving some editors into bankruptcy. In 1944 the Censorship Service fell under the Secretariado Nacional de Informação (National Information Secretariat) which in turn was under the control of Salazar himself. With the lápis azul (blue pencil, which became a symbol of censorship), censors would strike out any text deemed unsuitable for publication. While receiving generic instructions regarding which subjects were sensitive and should be censored, each censor would decide by himself what was admissible or not, resulting in considerable variations in what got published. This was due to censors being a very intellectually disparate group: while some would quickly cut any "dangerous" text, others would let by openly subversive content. This becomes readily clear by examining the original, struck-out articles preserved to date.

An order from the Direction of Censorship Services noted about children's and young adult books that "it seems desirable that the Portuguese children are educated, not as citizens of the world, in preparation, but as Portuguese children, that will soon no longer be children but will continue to be Portuguese".

While Books were not subject to prior censorship, these could be confiscated after being published. This method was frequently enforced by the PIDE (the political police), which would issue search warrants for bookstores. The post office monitored any mailing of books. The Inspecção Superior de Bibliotecas e Arquivos (Library and Archive Inspection) forbade the reading of certain documents. The Biblioteca Nacional (National Library) kept a list of books that were not to be read.

• História do Mundo para as Crianças - this novel written by Brazilian writer Monteiro Lobato was banned by the Portuguese government without any clear reason. According to the author, one possible reason was because he was from the "current of thought what claims that the discovery of Brazil happened 'by random'" or by the fact he "have registered the history of the 1600 years cut to the Arabian navy by Vasco da Gama".
• Novas Cartas Portuguesas - this book was accused by the Estado Novo government of containing pornographic and immoral content, sparking a court case where their authors - Maria Velho da Costa, Maria Teresa Horta and Maria Isabel Barreno - were involved. Its ban was uplifted after the 1974 Carnation Revolution. Currently, the book is considered as a sharp criticism of the Portuguese chauvinism and a commentary on the condition of women in society.
• The Gospel According Jesus Christ - this book written by the late José Saramago was denied participation in the European Literature Award by António Sousa Lara, the then-Under-Secretary for Culture (who had final say on applications from Portugal), who deemed the book as divisive among Portuguese people, rather than being representative of them. As a result, Saramago moved to Spain, residing permanently in Lanzarote, to protest against what he saw as an act of censorship.

Internet censorship

Internet access in Portugal is not restricted. There are neither government restrictions on access to the Internet nor reports that the government monitors e-mail or Internet chat rooms without appropriate legal authority. The constitution and law provide for freedom of speech and press, and the government generally respects these rights in practice. The law criminalizes the denigration of ethnic or religious minorities and the engagement in offensive practices such as Holocaust denial. Prison sentences for these crimes run between six months to eight years.The constitution and law prohibit arbitrary interference with privacy, family, home, or correspondence, and the government generally respected these prohibitions in practice, except in more recent years

The website Tugaleaks, which since December 2010 aims to serve as Portugal's version of WikiLeaks, had its bank account for donations arbitrarily closed on 13 July 2012 with no official communication. Tugaleaks contributors were finally told the account had been closed for its involvement in money laundering and terrorist financing.

As of March 2015, Portuguese ISPs have been ordered to block The Pirate Bay and many of its proxies by a court order, following the European trend, after a lawsuit brought by the Association for Copyright Management, Producers and Publishers (GEDIPE). This is the first time ever a website is blocked by ISPs in Portugal.

In July 2015 the Ministry of Culture announced the signed a memorandum between its own General Inspection of Cultural Activities (IGAC), the Portuguese Association of Telecommunication Operators (APRITEL), various rightsholder groups, the body responsible for administering Portugal’s .PT domain and representatives from the advertising industry to block any website they deemed appropriate. These measures have resulted on thousands of websites blocked under the charges of copyright infringement and gambling. One notable example of blocked copyrighted materials are internet databases that publish copyrighted scientific literature, such as LibGen. Such databases are often the only practical source of academic publications for scientists, the public and universities who can't afford subscription/licensing fees for scientific journals.

Since July 2015 MAPiNET, the Civic Movement to Combat Piracy on the Internet, has blocked hundreds of websites for copyright infringement.

Movie censorship

Movies are rated in Portugal by the Comissão de Classificação de Espectáculos of the Ministry of Culture. In cinemas the ratings are mandatory (subject to parental guidance) whereas for video releases they are merely advisory, except in the case of pornographic content. Children under the age of 3 were previously prohibited from public film performances, but a special category was introduced for this age group when the classification system was overhauled in 2014. A category for 14-year-olds was also introduced, and the lowest age rating was dropped from 4 years of age to 3. The categories are the following:

• Para todos os públicos – For all the public (especially designed for children under 3 years of age).
• M/3 Passed for viewers aged 3 and older.
• M/6 Passed for viewers aged 6 and older.
• M/12 Passed for viewers aged 12 and older.
• M/14 Passed for viewers aged 14 and older.
• M/16 Passed for viewers aged 16 and older.
• M/18 Passed for viewers aged 18 and older.
• P Special rating supplementary to the M/18 age rating denoting "pornography".

Instances of movie censorship

• Between 1933 and 1974, over 3500 films were banned for "moral" and political reasons, while others never went to the censors because the distributors knew they wouldn't pass. Most of these were "Russian"/Soviet films (between 1936 and 1970), Eastern European films (between 1947 and 1970), and Indian films (between 1953 and 1973), the latter due to the invasions of Portuguese India.
• Catch 22 - banned in 1970 during Marcello Caetano's regime due to featuring a naked man over a tree, as well as the film satirizing the military.
• Last Tango in Paris - this film was banned for its sexual contents. In 1974, however, the movie was unbanned.
• In the Realm of Senses - this Japanese film, while not banned, was cause of major controversy after its airing on RTP in 1991 due to its sexual themes and explicit scenes. Some even deemed that the film was inappropriate even for the watershed slot, while others appreciated its airing. This film aired again on RTP2, almost unnoticed.

Television censorship

Since 13 September 2003, the channels RTP, SIC and TVI signed the Classificação de Programas de Televisão (Television shows classification) self-regulation agreement on television shows rating, with the aim to proportionate viewers with the guide of choice suitable to their age range, and for educators, an orientation about the screening of the content aired on Portuguese channels.

Instances of television censorship

• In 1948, dubbing foreign movies and shows was banned to protect the Portuguese film industry, as well to limit the culture diffusion, as most of the population in the country at the time was illiterate. Another reason was that dialog could thus be left untranslated or purposely mistranslated so as to avoid forbidden subjects. Today, only animated movies and shows are dubbed in European Portuguese, while the rest of movies is subtitled in original language.
• Humor de Perdição - This humor series by Herman José was suspended in 1988 by the RTP Management Council, presided by Coelho Ribeiro (who during the dictatorship, was a censor) justified the suspension by the supposedly undignified way in which the Entrevistas Históricas ("Historical Interviews") segment portrayed important Portuguese historical figures, The frequent references to King Sebastian's supposed homosexuality were primarily cited as the main factor for the cancellation of the series.
• In 2004, the so-called "Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa affair" became public. A former leader of the PSD, Rebelo de Sousa (who later would become president of Portugal), was a political commentator for the TVI television station when he was pressured by the station president, Miguel Pais do Amaral and by the Minister for Parliamentary Affairs, Rui Gomes da Silva, to refrain from criticizing the government so sharply. This was regarded as unacceptable by the press and prompted Rebelo de Sousa's resignation from TVI and an investigation by the Alta Autoridade da Comunicação Social (High Authority for the Media - the media regulator) into the station which found proof of "pressures from the government and promiscuity between political and economical powers".

Video game censorship

Like several European countries, video games in Portugal are rated by the Pan European Game Information (PEGI).

External links

• Censorship in Portugal at Wikipedia