Fábio Konder Comparato, who did not take part in the act. The protest gathered around 300 people and was organized by the Movimento dos Sem Mídia, an activist group created by blogger Eduardo Guimarães. Most of the participants were relatives of people victimized by the Brazilian dictatorship and union activists connected to labor organization CUT. On the same day, Otavio Frias Filho, Folha's editorial director, stated: "Using the word 'ditabranda' in our February 17 editorial was a mistake. It is a frivolous term, inappropriate to such grave matters. All dictatorships are equally abominable. However, from a historical standpoint, it is still a fact that the Brazilian dictatorship, however brutal, was less repressive than similar regimes in Argentina, Uruguay and Chile, or than the left-wing Cuban dictatorship. The note we printed to accompany the letters by Professors Comparato and Benevides, on February 20, was a sharp-worded response to a sharp-worded rebuke: the claim that those responsible for the editorial should apologize 'on their knees'. In order to impeach the democratic credentials of others, those so-called democrats should first show their rejection, and with the same venom, of the methods adopted by left-wing dictatorships towards which they are partial". The note led the professors to request, by way of their lawyers, the right to publish additional considerations, labeled as "right to response": "To take more than two weeks to recognize a grave editorial misstep (labeling the Brazilian military regime as a "ditabranda"), and to shift the blame for the incident onto the tenor of our criticism does not seem a behavior compatible with the ethics of journalism. We have always claimed, with no need of righteous lessons from no one else, that the victims of arbitrary regimes, both here and elsewhere, deserve the same protection and respect, no matter our ideological biases or personal preferences". The professors' response was printed accompanied by a new editorial note: "Folha's treatment of the situation created by the use of the word 'ditabranda' in an editorial dated February 17, with the printing of several critical messages and our acknowledgement that the word was used frivolously, is an example of editorial fairness. The episode was supposedly closed, but Professors Comparato e Benevides are intent on extracting the maximum gain from it. Their opinions were always depicted faithfully by the newspaper, through several articles, with no need of lawyer intervention. The 'response' above was printed based on Act