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Pulitzer-winning US journalist charged in Brazil for exposé against justice system

Glenn Greenwald is a co-founder of 'The Intercept', a website that claims to offer ‘fearless, adversarial journalism that holds the powerful accountable’.

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New Delhi: American journalist Glenn Greenwald has been charged with cybercrimes by Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro administration over leaks that raised questions about members of the country’s justice system.

Articles based on the leaks, published in The Intercept Brasil last year, cast doubt on the impartiality of former judge Sérgio Moro, the incumbent justice minister, and other prosecutors, who adjudicated a corruption investigation that landed many political and business figures in prison, including former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. 

Resentment over da Silva’s conviction for corruption and a deep recession are believed to be among the key factors that drove voters towards Bolsonaro, a Right-wing leader known to be misogynist and homophobic. Bolsonaro will soon be in India as the chief guest for the 71st Republic Day celebrations. 

Shortly after Bolsonaro was elected, Moro became the justice minister in his cabinet. 

Greenwald is a co-founder of The Intercept, a media platform that claims to offer “fearless, adversarial journalism that holds the powerful accountable”. He is married to Brazilian lawmaker David Miranda and lives with him in the South American country.

The charges against Greenwald, who has not been detained, have been criticised by organisations promoting media freedom. He has promised to fight the charges, pitching them as a test for Brazilian democracy.


Also Read: ‘Homophobic, misogynist and a bigot’ — meet Jair Bolsonaro, India’s Republic Day chief guest


A celebrated career

Greenwald is a well-known journalist, who has earlier worked with The Guardian. He is best known for his reportage on government surveillance in the US through documents made available by whistleblower Edward Snowden, a former contractor in the US National Security Agency, in 2013. 

The investigation won Greenwald and his team a Pulitzer Prize in 2014.

The same year, Greenwald co-founded The Intercept, which was initially used as a medium to report on documents released by Snowden. The website’s Brazilian version, The Intercept Brasil, was launched in 2016.  

‘Part of a criminal organisation’

According to a report in The New York Times, federal prosecutors have claimed in a 95-page complaint that “The Intercept Brasil… did more than merely receive the hacked messages and oversee the publication of newsworthy information”.

Greenwald, they claim, was part of a “criminal organisation” that hacked into the cellphones of several prosecutors and other public officials. The senior journalist, they say, had a “clear role in facilitating the commission of a crime”, including encouraging hackers to delete archives to cover their tracks. 

BBC reported that the charges have currently just been “proposed” by the prosecutors, and a judge will now decide whether to formally indict Greenwald.

‘Won’t be intimidated’

Responding to the charges, Greenwald said he had been methodical in his dealings with the source, who gave him the leaked chats and was mindful of the lessons he had learned in the Snowden case. “The one thing I could not do is give direction. That’s crossing a line. I was very careful,” he said.

In a video tweeted early Wednesday, Greenwald said, “We will not be intimidated by these tyrannical attempts to silence journalists.” 

He added that the federal police conducted a comprehensive investigation into his reporting and sources, and concluded that he did not commit any crime. “I have always exercised the highest level of professionalism, caution and responsibility,” he added. 

The Freedom of the Press Foundation, a US-based non-profit, released a statement supporting Greenwald, saying the Brazilian government’s “blatant and disgusting” move is an outrageous violation of press freedom. Greenwald is a founding board member of the organisation. 

The American Civil Liberties Union, another US-based non-profit, said, “Our government must immediately condemn this outrageous assault on the freedom of the press, and recognise that its attacks on press freedoms at home have consequences for American journalists doing their jobs abroad, like Glenn Greenwald.”

Greenwald and the Bolsonaros

After the investigation was published last year, Bolsonaro publicly suggested that Greenwald should be thrown in prison, saying he “committed crimes”. Bolsonaro has also reportedly targeted the journalist with homophobic slurs. 

After the prosecutors filed the complaint against Greenwald, Bolsonaro’s son Eduardo Bolsonaro, an MP, tweeted, “Glenn Greenwald always said he loved Brazil and wanted to get to know the country in-depth. Maybe he will get to know [one of Brazil’s] jails.”


Also Read: 7 Pakistani journalists killed, 60 booked under anti-terror & other laws in 2019: Report


 

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