A Falsified Newspaper and the Repressive Tactics Employed by Brazil's Military Dictatorship (1977)

Abstract

The highlighted source is a periodical originally published by the Diocese of Nova Iguaçu, a region of Baixada Fluminense, in the state of Rio de Janeiro. The document is an apocryphal edition of the church's official periodical that was made public in May 1977. The hypothesis for the case of falsification is that, in the context of the Cold War and the enforcement of the National Security Law, the military regime used a variety of repressive strategies against the so-called "internal enemies". In this case, the elaboration, content, and distribution of the forged newspaper reveal, beyond the already known cases of human rights violations, the use of disinformation as a political instrument against opponents. The case of the falsification also raises heuristic questions for historians about narrative, the true and the false, and the interpretive uses and limits of a document that is recognized as apocryphal.

Keywrods:
Civil-military dictatorship; Baixada Fluminense; Catholic Church