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By J.R. Guzzo*
The Lula authorities, that apostle of excellent that saved democracy in Brazil, has simply introduced the creation of a “Department for the Promotion of Freedom of Expression,” one other arm of its more and more aggressive Ministry of Propaganda.
To hyperlink Lula’s identify to the thought of democracy is without doubt one of the nice fairy tales of the twenty first century, however this farce has change into the one reality in Brazil and on the planet in the present day.
What can we do? If the man disagrees he will likely be known as a coup plotter, a terrorist, and even a Bolsonarist.
Even so, the details are the details, and the concrete actions of Lula and his authorities are the precise reverse of something that has to do with democracy.
The most up-to-date proof of that is the so-called “department”, or “secretariat”, or “committee”, or no matter, “to promote” “freedom of speech” in Brazil.
It is an outrage.
What Lula has simply created is a brand new police drive to regulate what residents say in public.
There was already one, within the Public Ministry; now they’ve doubled it.
The thought itself is clearly absurd: who ever heard, at any time in historical past, that freedom of speech must be handed over to a public workplace? There is not any such factor.
Governments, each time they get into the matter, solely prohibit public and particular person freedoms; they’ve by no means, ever, ever left folks freer to precise themselves.
It is inevitable that it’s going to occur once more with this newest invention of the Lula authorities.
Or does anybody truthfully assume that the division of freedom promotion goes to encourage Brazilians to criticize the federal government extra, or to denounce what they assume is improper?
Of course this won’t occur. What there will likely be is censorship.
You can’t arrange a watchdog group, which on this case will likely be composed solely of left-wing militants, give them the authority to evaluate what the inhabitants says – and assume, on the identical time, that they don’t seem to be going to chop, block and forbid issues that they learn, hear or watch.
To say, as the federal government is saying and many individuals mechanically repeat, that this deal was set as much as “combat disinformation” is a lie in its pure state.
“Disinformation?” What is that? For the left, which has change into the only inspector of reality in Brazil, disinformation is every little thing that authorities doesn’t need to be printed within the media and social networks.
That is it, and solely that.
If there have been a modicum of honesty on this fervor to rid Brazil of the evils of “disinformation” the brand new authorities censors might start their work by making use of, now, a punishment to President Lula.
He has simply stated in public, as soon as once more, that Dilma Rousseff was overthrown by a “coup d’état” – when even a 10-year-old baby is aware of completely effectively that she was thrown out of workplace by a 100% authorized means of impeachment, together with the direct supervision of the Supreme Court in each step of the process.
How is it doable, then, to say that this was a “coup”? That’s not “disinformation” – that’s a lie.
The reality fighters, after all, will do nothing about it.
Governments in free nations have just one position in the case of freedom of thought: to ensure the enforcement of legal guidelines that be certain that residents have the appropriate to say every little thing they assume, and loudly.
The relaxation is dictatorship speak.
*Journalist and columnist at Revista Oeste and O Estado de S. Paulo
Wth info from Revista Oeste