With Bolsonaro, freedom of expression is in danger | The …

From Brasilia

Under threat President Jair Bolsonaro called the journalist Glenn Greenward "malandro" during a statement in which he told him the possibility of sending it to "Cana" for publishing information about irregularities committed in the Lava Jato case. The editor of the Intercept website has filled the patience of the government with his articles based on transcripts and audio conversations via the Telegram application of the then judge Sergio Moro and the chief prosecutor of this process having resulted in the prison of Luiz Inácio. Lula da Silva, arrested since 7 April 2018 in Curitiba.

With the downline of Bolsonaro, the current Minister of Justice and Public Security, Moro, has regulated the "summary" expulsion of any alien in case of breach of national security . Published in the Official Journal last Friday, the decree barely concealed its casuistic nature.

The tone of statements made by President Saturday and the measure promulgated by Moro a day earlier leaves little doubt about the closure of American journalist and lawyer Greenwald.

At the same time, an operation was launched against those suspected of having invaded Moro's phones and members of the "Lava Jato Working Group". This weekend was extended five days the arrest in Brasilia of the four suspected pirates.

"What bothers me the most is that Sergio Moro is investigating me, he wants to stop me, criminalizing journalism by saying that we are allies of hackers," said Greenwald, pointing out that He would not divulge the names of his sources under Brazilian law.

Among the four prisoners, described by the authorities as very dangerous, there is a driver Uber, a DJ and his girlfriend, a manicure. None of them are programmers or have ever violated sophisticated systems.

"More than hackers, they look like thieves from the province, they introduced us as the" hackers of the Russian connection "and I think they are the" Araraquara "(city in the interior of Sao Paulo), "said Associate Professor of Federal University of ABC, Sergio Amadeus, a specialist in cyber espionage.

"We face an absurdity, that is Moro who has to give explanations about what Greenwald wrote, but instead of doing it, he's the one who commissioned an operation that points to Greenwald," said the professor.

Although targeted by the government, Glenn Greenwald has expressed his intention to go ahead with his revelations. "The worst has not been published yet," he said. "I am able to refute each negation of Mr. Moro" backed by thousands of documents, he said.

Before facing the pressure in the form of a pincer formed by Bolsonaro and Moro, Greenwald campaigned, between 2013 and 2014, against the threat of the US intelligence community having published in the newspaper British The Guardian the secret papers of the NSA security agency obtained by former agent Edward Snowden.

This feat earned the Pulitzer Prize to a journalist based in Brazil fifteen years ago. And the documentary on the history of Snowden, in which Greenwald is an important character, won the Oscar.

As of 9 June, Intercept has started to disseminate information on the manner in which Moro informed Deltan Dallagnol, chief prosecutor of Curitiba, of the preparation of the complaint against Lula, the law prohibiting the judge of Interfering with the task of prosecutors.

Part of these articles was annexed by the former president's lawyers as part of an appeal to the Federal Supreme Court so that his sentence could be annulled because of the lack of impartiality of Moro.

Other leaks revealed by The Intercept indicate that Lava Jato's mentor magistrate was arrested while he was giving instructions on how to put pressure on a witness.

In the most recent articles, released Friday, it was revealed that Dallagnol had charged thousands of dollars to hold a conference sponsored by a firm that was the subject of an investigation in Lava Jato. And he received another juicy check for attending a private meeting with bankers to whom he allegedly provided sensitive information.

The case had an impact this weekend on the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

"Unfortunately, the Brazilian president seems to have forgotten the Constitution and the international treaties on freedom of expression which Brazil is a signatory," said Edson Lanza, special rapporteur on freedom of expression for this body of law. # 39; hemisphere.