{"id":18277,"date":"2019-06-18T17:20:21","date_gmt":"2019-06-18T16:20:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=18277"},"modified":"2020-11-12T12:56:25","modified_gmt":"2020-11-12T12:56:25","slug":"campaign-freedom-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=18277","title":{"rendered":"Campaign for freedom win"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The\u00c2\u00a0revelations uncovered\u00c2\u00a0about\u00c2\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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t just about Lula, the consequences of this miscarriage of justice are huge, says Unite AGS Tony Burke<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

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Last week,\u00c2\u00a0The\u00c2\u00a0Intercept<\/a><\/em>\u00c2\u00a0published a range of documents that show Lula\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 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\u00c2\u00a0Bolsonaro\u00c2\u00a0went on to win the election. Lula\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s prosecuting Judge Sergio Moro was then appointed Minister of Justice.<\/p>\n

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Lula was convicted for \u00e2\u20ac\u0098indeterminate acts of corruption\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 and accused of receiving an apartment in the form of a bribe. The investigation was part of a sweeping corruption probe called the Car Wash (Lavo\u00c2\u00a0Jato) Operation that caused a huge political uproar in Brazil. It claimed to be neutral, with its leading star Judge Sergio Moro claimed to be uninterested in politics.<\/p>\n

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

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At the time of Lula\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s arrest, myself and others made it clear that the investigation against him was an abuse of the judicial system \u00e2\u20ac\u201c illegal wiretaps on his family and legal team, lack of material evidence, and evidence of his innocence were systematically ignored \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and this is now indisputable.<\/p>\n

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The released documents show that Judge Moro acted with blatant disregard for the basic principles of neutrality, justice and fairness. While claiming to be acting impartially, as preceding Judges in any legal system around the world must, Moro was designing the very charges he was supposed to be ruling over.<\/p>\n

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Moro was communicating with, and directed, leading prosecutor Deltan Dallagnol while publicly claiming the opposite. These explosive files have even shown that the prosecution didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think there was enough evidence to convict\u00c2\u00a0Lula\u00c2\u00a0but they pushed ahead anyway. And why not? \u00c2\u00a0They clearly knew that the overseeing Judge wanted to convict him.<\/p>\n

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You don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t need a legal background to see that this is an abuse of the justice system for political ends. As\u00c2\u00a0The\u00c2\u00a0Intercept<\/em>\u00c2\u00a0journalist Glenn Greenwald has said, this is \u00e2\u20ac\u015ba complete and undeniable violation of every ethical rule of what a judge can do.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

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Not only were the investigators attempting to discredit Lula, these documents show that they wanted to destroy the Brazilian Workers Party (PT), and the huge\u00c2\u00a0progressive gains they made in poverty reduction, social mobility and other areas, ensuring that the right-wing returned to political dominance in the process.<\/p>\n

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Evidence of this includes files showing the prosecuting team working to stop Lula giving interviews from prison in case it helped the chances of Fernando Haddad, Lula\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s replacement candidate, in the presidential election.<\/p>\n

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The ramifications of this now disgraced investigation have been huge.\u00c2\u00a0Bolsonaro\u00c2\u00a0and the far-right rode to power on the back of Lula\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s removal from the political process and the anti-PT sentiment fostered by Judge Moro.<\/p>\n

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With\u00c2\u00a0Bolsonaro\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s\u00c2\u00a0rise to prominence has come a rise in hate, attacks on the LGBT community, attacks on indigenous peoples, illegal deforestation, police killings and open racism. His political agenda has been one of privatisation, slashing budgets and dismantling the education system, attacks on trade unions (Lula was the president of the Brazilian metalworkers union), social welfare and environmental protections.<\/p>\n

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Brazil now has a President who doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t believe in climate change, (his ministers even believe that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a \u00e2\u20ac\u0098Marxist Plot\u00e2\u20ac\u2122) despite\u00c2\u00a0being in charge of\u00c2\u00a0one of the most important ecological areas of the planet.<\/p>\n

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The increasingly authoritarian President, like Trump, is another powerful figure in the global far-right. It is\u00c2\u00a0all the more\u00c2\u00a0worrying that with blanket praise and uncritical analysis of Judge Moro\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s actions, respected institutions across the globe have facilitated his ascension to power.<\/p>\n

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This case hasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t just affected Lula\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s freedom or the democratic right of 200 million Brazilians. The example he sets for aspiring far-right authoritarians, wherever they may be, affects all of us.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The only response from Brazil\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s right has been outright denial and personal attacks on the journalists involved. In a climate where progressive councilwomen and human rights campaigner Marielle Franco was politically assassinated last year, we need to take this fight seriously, and stand strong with those in the defence of democracy.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

These revelations could be a \u00e2\u20ac\u0098Watergate\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 moment for Brazil. Trade unionists and progressives in Britain must continue to push for Lula\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s freedom, and show that the consequences of this investigation have been far-reaching and must not be ignored.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Tony Burke is Assistant General Secretary of Unite and Vice-Chair of the\u00c2\u00a0Brazil Solidarity Initiative. This comment first appeared in Tribune<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The\u00c2\u00a0revelations uncovered\u00c2\u00a0about\u00c2\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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t just about Lula, the consequences of this miscarriage of justice are huge, says Unite AGS Tony Burke.   Last week,\u00c2\u00a0The\u00c2\u00a0Intercept\u00c2\u00a0published a range of documents that show Lula\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s conviction was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18274,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[22],"tags":[1182,158,1181],"wps_subtitle":"Brazil\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0098Car Wash\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 corruption investigation is a white-wash","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18277"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18277"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18277\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25197,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18277\/revisions\/25197"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}