Charges Against Journalist Glenn Greenwald in Brazil: “Disproportionate Reprisal”

The Brazilian Federal Prosecutor’s Office has formally accused the American investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald of “helping, encouraging and guiding” a group of hackers who allegedly provided him with compromising information about Brazilian power. RSF denounces unjustified accusations which amount to disproportionate reprisals.

Seven people were indicted by the Federal Prosecutor’s Office on Tuesday, January 21, as part of the investigation into the hacking of cell phones of senior Brazilian officials in 2019. The American journalist Glenn Greenwald , who lives in Brazil, and who founded the Info site The Intercept Brasil is among the accused.

Federal prosecutor Wellington Oliveira considers that the journalist “helped, encouraged and guided” a group of six hackers so that they erase messages which they had transmitted to him, in order not to be able to link it to the illegal obtaining of data. This accusation is based on a conversation between the journalist and one of the hackers, whose content was found on a computer seized by the police.

This same conversation had previously led the federal police to conclude, in a report published in December 2019, that the journalist had adopted “a cautious and distant posture in relation to the realization of the hacking”. In early August, a decision by the Brazilian Supreme Court also asserted the constitutional right to protection of sources.

The accusations presented against the journalist Glenn Greenwald are absurd, unjustified and go against opinions already given, denounces the Latin America office of RSF. The federal prosecutor relies on a conversation in which the journalist simply worried about preserving the anonymity of his sources, as any news professional would do. Failing to be dropped immediately , these accusations can amount to a disproportionate reprisal measure against the work of the team of The Intercept Brasil who had revealed flaws in the judicial and political power in Brazil. ”

Since June 2019, The Intercept Brasil has published a series of reports which revealed serious irregularities in the anti-corruption investigation “Lavage Express” (“Lava Jato”). The articles exposed private exchanges between several prosecutors and members of the judiciary, obtained through an anonymous source cited by Glenn Greenwald. The messages notably revealed a collaboration between the former judge and current Minister of Justice, Sérgio Moro, the main prosecutor in charge of the “Lavage Express” case, and all the teams in charge of the investigations.

These publications sparked attacks against Glenn Greenwald, his family and work colleagues, including journalists at The Intercept Brasil . President Jair Bolsonaro said on July 27, 2019, that the journalist could “be imprisoned”.

Brazil ranks 105th in the 2019 World Press Freedom Index compiled by RSF.

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