{"id":135741,"date":"2019-06-17T12:00:23","date_gmt":"2019-06-17T11:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=135741"},"modified":"2019-06-24T11:48:01","modified_gmt":"2019-06-24T10:48:01","slug":"brazil-lula-is-innocent-free-him-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2019\/06\/brazil-lula-is-innocent-free-him-now\/","title":{"rendered":"Brazil: Lula Is Innocent. Free Him Now."},"content":{"rendered":"

The evidence is now overwhelming \u2014 Lula was the victim of a politically motivated campaign to keep him from returning to power in Brazil. He must be freed.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Former Brazilian president Lula da Silva gives a speech to supporters on March 18, 2016, in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Photo by Victor Moriyama \/ Getty Images<\/p><\/div>\n

15 Jun 2019 – <\/em>The\u00a0revelations uncovered\u00a0about\u00a0the case against former Brazilian president Lula da Silva, jailed in April last year, vindicate a year of campaigning for his freedom. But this isn\u2019t just about Lula, the consequences of this miscarriage of justice are huge.<\/p>\n

This last week the Intercept<\/em>\u00a0published a range of documents<\/a>\u00a0that show Lula\u2019s conviction was politically motivated and aimed at stopping him running in the 2018 presidential election. With front-runner Lula out of the race (he was polling over double of his election rivals at the time of his arrest) far-right candidate Jair\u00a0Bolsonaro\u00a0went on to win the election. Lula\u2019s prosecuting Judge Sergio Moro was then appointed Minister of Justice.<\/p>\n

Lula was convicted for \u201cindeterminate acts of corruption\u201d and accused of receiving an apartment in the form of a bribe. The investigation was part of a sweeping corruption probe called the \u201cCar Wash\u201d (Lava\u00a0Jato<\/em>) Operation that caused a huge political uproar in Brazil. It claimed to be neutral, and its star Judge Sergio Moro claimed to be above politics.<\/p>\n

The investigation was even hailed by the national and international media, and Moro was named in the\u00a0Time 100 list<\/a>.<\/p>\n

At the time of Lula\u2019s arrest, numerous campaigners argued that the investigation against him was an abuse of the judicial system \u2014 illegal wiretaps on his family and legal team, lack of material evidence, and evidence of his innocence systematically ignored. The argument against his trial\u2019s fairness is now indisputable.<\/p>\n

The released documents show that Judge Moro acted with blatant disregard for the principles of neutrality. While claiming to be impartial, Moro was secretly collaborating with the prosecution to design the very case he was supposed to be ruling over.<\/p>\n

Moro was communicating with, and directing, leading prosecutor Deltan \u00a0Dallagnol, whose case he was later supposed to judge. The explosive files even show that the prosecution themselves didn\u2019t think there was enough evidence to convict\u00a0Lula\u00a0\u2014 but they pushed ahead anyway. And why not? They knew that the overseeing judge wanted to convict him.<\/p>\n

You don\u2019t need a legal background to recognize this abuse of the justice system for political ends. As\u00a0the\u00a0Intercept<\/em> journalist Glenn Greenwald said<\/a>,\u00a0this is \u201ca complete and undeniable violation of every ethical rule that governs what a judge can do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not only were the investigators attempting to discredit Lula, these documents show that they wanted to destroy the Brazilian Workers\u2019 Party (PT) and the huge\u00a0progressive gains they made in poverty reduction, social mobility, and other areas, ensuring that the right wing returned to political dominance in the process. The files show the prosecuting team directly intervening in politics by working to stop Lula giving interviews from prison in case it helped the chances of Fernando Haddad, Lula\u2019s replacement candidate, in the election.<\/p>\n

The ramifications of this now-disgraced investigation have been enormous.\u00a0 Bolsonaro\u00a0and the far right rode to power on the back of Lula\u2019s removal from the political process and the anti-PT sentiment fostered by Judge Moro. With \u00a0Bolsonaro\u2019s\u00a0rise to power has come an agenda of privatization, slashing budgets and dismantling the education system, attacking trade unions, social welfare, and environmental protections, and threatening Brazil\u2019s LGBT and indigenous populations.<\/p>\n

Brazil now has a president who doesn\u2019t believe in climate change (his ministers believe that it\u2019s a \u201cMarxist plot\u201d), who wants to row back all progress made in protecting the Amazon rainforest and who supports Donald Trump\u2019s political interventions on the world stage.<\/p>\n

With their praise for Judge Moro and his actions, respected institutions across the globe facilitated this situation by paving the way for Bolsonaro\u2019s rise to power.<\/p>\n

This case hasn\u2019t just affected Lula\u2019s freedom or the democratic right of two hundred million Brazilians, the example he sets for aspiring far-right authoritarians, wherever they may be, impacts all of us.<\/p>\n

The only response from Brazil\u2019s right has been outright denial and personal attacks on the journalists involved. In a climate where progressive councilwoman and human rights campaigner Marielle Franco was politically assassinated last year, we need to take this fight seriously.<\/p>\n

These revelations could be a \u201cWatergate\u201d moment for Brazil. We must insist they are not ignored and continue to push for Lula\u2019s freedom.<\/p>\n

__________________________________________________<\/p>\n

Tony Burke is assistant general secretary of Unite the union. He is the vice-chair of the Brazil Solidarity Initiative.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 jacobinmag.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

15 Jun 2019 – The Intercept published a range of documents that show Lula\u2019s conviction was politically motivated and aimed at stopping him running in the 2018 presidential election. With Lula out of the race, far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro won the election. Lula\u2019s prosecuting Judge Sergio Moro was then appointed Minister of Justice. The evidence is now overwhelming \u2014 Lula must be freed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":135742,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[180,53,139],"tags":[547,393,651,541,1134,985],"class_list":["post-135741","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-brics","category-latin-america-and-the-caribbean","category-justice","tag-brazil","tag-coup","tag-justice","tag-latin-america-caribbean","tag-lula-da-silva","tag-social-justice"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135741","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135741"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135741\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/135742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}