Journalist from The Wall Street Journal spoke about the annulment of Lula’s conviction and the blocking of Twitter/X in Brazil
In an article that appeared in the Sunday 8th edition of The Wall Street Journal, columnist Mary Anastasia O’Grady, who specializes in political issues on the American continent, stated that Minister Alexandre de Moraes and the Supreme Court (STF) are deeply involved in politics.
She expressed severe criticism of Moraes’ – and the STF’s – recent aggressive actions attacking freedom of expression, ordering the blocking of Twitter/X in Brazil and the imprisonment of individuals for carrying out “hate speech” on social media. She said that Elon Musk’s refusal to obey illegal orders that infringe on the freedom of expression guaranteed by the Brazilian Constitution made “Moraes angry”.
“If freedom of expression is a measure of a modern liberal democracy, Brazil is in trouble. The repression of expression and the denial of due process to those who contradict the state’s version of the truth date back to 2020. Now it’s getting worse,” begins O’Grady.
According to the journalist, Moraes understands that his job as a judge is to muzzle anyone who criticizes the judiciary. “Judge De Moraes has nothing against X per se. His beef is with social media influencers whose use of irreverence and mockery as rhetorical weapons against the ruling establishment makes them popular on the right side of Brazilian politics. (…) But Judge De Moraes calls these non-conformists purveyors of disinformation and a threat to democracy. He considers it his job to muzzle them.”
Moraes and the STF: Politics in Lula’s Favor
However, the columnist recalls that the issue is older and began with the STF’s decision to overturn the convictions of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. This extended to the persecution of those who criticized the court’s decision, uncertainty about the outcome of the election and the impossibility of verifying the result.
For Mary O’Grady, trying to reverse the problem in Brazil means first recognizing the problem, which is the political action of the STF. “For more than four years, the Supreme Court, led by Justice De Moraes and others who share his thirst for power, has been up to its neck in politics.”
Claiming that Lula and his party were “at the center of the biggest corruption scandal in Latin American history – for which there is a ton of evidence”, the STF nevertheless “in 2021, the Supreme Court overturned Lula’s conviction on a technicality, arguing that he was tried in the wrong jurisdiction. As the statute of limitations had expired, Lula went free. But he was never exonerated.
The consequence of this was the discontent of a large section of the population, expressed through social networks, but severely repressed by Moraes and the STF, who felt “offended” by the criticism, as reported by O’Grady. This repression continued during the 2022 electoral process.
“Half the country was furious, venting their anger on social media. Millions of Brazilians started referring to the former president as a thief. Judge De Moraes and his colleagues on the High Court, considering themselves above the fray and beyond reproach, were offended by the public speeches against them. During the 2022 presidential campaign, when Judge De Moraes was also president of the seven-member Electoral Court, he again engaged in censorship to protect Lula, who was running for a third non-consecutive term. Among other prohibitions on ‘hate speech’, it was forbidden to say that Lula was never cleared in the bribery case,” O’Grady maintains.
The journalism professional maintains that auditing the results of the election was unfeasible due to the refusal of the law stipulating the “printed vote”, which was annulled by the court.
“When the Electoral Court announced that Lula had won the election by a narrow margin, some supporters of his rival, President Jair Bolsonaro, doubted the results. But an audit was impossible, because the Supreme Court had struck down a law that would provide a paper trail to verify the electronic results. Frustrated citizens with no recourse showed up in Brasilia, where chaos erupted on January 8, 2022,” writes the WSJ journalist.
The article concludes with the statement that the actions of Moraes and the STF are weakening trust in Brazilian institutions.”More repression of speech, such as banning X, won’t help. Instead, it can be expected to drive Brazilian democracy further into the hole,” concludes O’Grady.