Tropical Storm Isaias could strengthen into a hurricane and threaten the East Coast after battering Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, according to U.S. forecasters. The A man guides a tow truck under a downed power line pole after Tropical Storm Isaias hit the area in Mayaguez, Puerto Rico, July 30, 2020.President Donald Trump has signed an emergency declaration for Puerto Rico, which has yet to fully recover from 2017’s Hurricane Maria and a recent series of earthquakes. Tropical Storm Isaias knocked out power across Puerto Rico and caused widespread flooding and a number of small landslides. More than 100,000 people were in need of fresh water. Emergency workers had to rescue several families who were reluctant to leave their homes for public shelters because of the coronavirus.  Isaias also blew down trees in the Dominican Republic. Police arrested surfers who refused to heed warnings to find shelter. Isaias is the ninth named storm of a busy Atlantic hurricane season. This is the earliest date a storm beginning with the letter “I” has formed. 
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Relations between Russia and its erstwhile ally Belarus veered into uncharted territory after Belarusian security forces on Wednesday detained more than 30 suspected Russian mercenaries near the capital Minsk — allegedly for trying to disrupt Belarus’ Aug. 9 presidential elections.
 
The arrests came in the midst of a charged election season, one that has seen Belarus’s longtime President Alexander Lukashenko detain several would-be rivals only to see their wives step up as placeholder candidates.
 
In particular, the candidacy of Svetlana Tikhanovskaya — whose husband, the political blogger Sergei Tikhanovsky now sits in jail on what she says are trumped up charges — has emerged as the opposition’s lead candidate and an unexpected political star attracting large crowds.
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The timing of the Russians’ detention prompted questions of whether the arrests were a pretext for canceling elections or declaring a national emergency.
 
On Thursday, the Belarusian election commission gathered remaining candidates for a meeting and announced that security measures at rallies and mass gatherings would be increased.
 
Belarus’ Investigative Committee also said the detained Russians and two would-be presidential candidates would face joint criminal charges — suggesting Belarusian authorities were trying to exploit the incident for political gain.
 
Lukashenko also appeared in a televised meeting with his Security Council, where he insisted on clarification about the Russians presence from Moscow.
 
“If they’re Russians, then we should reach out immediately to appropriate structures of the Russian Federation, so they explain what’s happening,” said Lukashenko.
 
The Belarusian leader added, “we don’t have any goal to smear a country with whom we’re close.”
 
In related moves, Belarus’ Foreign Ministry summoned the Russian ambassador in Minsk and both countries said they were working to strengthen border controls.
 
Neither the Kremlin nor Russia’s Foreign Ministry has commented on the incident.
 An odd holiday
 
The arrests were first announced by the Belarusian state news agency Belsat, which claimed those arrested were part of a 200 strong paramilitary force that had infiltrated Belarus ahead of the vote.
 
Only the report claimed Belarus security services had discovered 32 of the Russians at a resort outside of Minsk — with the Russians standing out for both their camouflage clothes and un-holiday-like demeanor.People walk past a campaign poster of opposition presidential candidate Svetlana Tikhanovskaya in Minsk, Belarus, July 30, 2020.“They did not drink alcohol or visit entertainment facilities and kept to themselves to maintain a low profile,” said the TV report, while adding this was “atypical behavior for Russian tourists.”
 Video showed the men being detained in their underwear with guns and ammunition scattered about.
 
Belarus’s KGB later issued a statement identifying the men as part of the Wagner Group, a shadowy Russian mercenary force that journalists have traced to Kremlin proxy battles in east Ukraine, Syria, and portions of Africa.
 
Zahar Prilepin, a renowned Russian novelist who has taken up arms with pro-Russian rebels in fighting in east Ukraine, said in an interview with Russia’s URA.ru news service that he recognized some of the detained men as Wagner fighters. 
 
The Wagner group is allegedly under the control of Evgeny Prigozhin — often referred to as “Putin’s Chef” for securing state food industry contracts in the armed forces and schools.
 
Despite years of mounting evidence, the Kremlin has always denied the paramilitary group’s existence.
 End game theories
 
Though formally allies, relations between Moscow and Minsk have frayed in recent years over a long-stalled reunification effort to create a supra-state.
 
Observers say Lukashenko, in particular, has resisted the union out of fear of playing the lesser figure to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
 
The Kremlin has also expressed displeasure over Lukashenko’s hands-off approach to battling the novel coronavirus —voicing concerns that the virus could spread across the border.
 
The Belarusian leader — who announced on Tuesday that he had been infected but survived the virus without showing symptoms or stopping work — has dismissed fear of the pandemic as “mass psychosis.”
 
In a sign of just how strained relations have become, the Belarusian leader openly accused Russia of trying to foment a street revolution earlier this week.  
It is a charge normally reserved for the United States.
 
Indeed, the primary debate surrounding the arrest episode centered on Lukashenko’s intentions and Moscow’s role.
 
Had Belarus really foiled a plot or was this a staged event ahead of the Aug. 9 vote?
 
Gleb Pavlovsky, a former political advisor to President Putin, said in an interview with Echo of Moscow radio that the size of the Russian force suggested more theater than threat.
 
“I don’t think that Moscow will angrily respond to it, because in these situations the actors are released at the end of the play,” said Pavlovsky.
 
“In other words, after the elections.”
 
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A court in Moscow has sentenced former U.S. Marine Trevor Reed to nine years in prison after finding him guilty of assaulting two police officers, a charge that he refused to admit.Judge Dmitry Arnaut of Moscow’s Golovinsky District Court on July 30 also ordered Reed to pay 150,000 rubels ($2,000) to each police officer as compensation for moral damage.The 29-year old man, who is from Texas, traveled to Moscow in May 2019 to study Russian and spend time with his Russian girlfriend, Alina Tsybulnik.On August 15, several days before his trip back to Texas, Reed and his girlfriend attended a party organized by her colleagues. He claims to have no memory of what happened following the party, where he says he was encouraged to drink large quantities of vodka.In a car going home afterward, Reed said he felt unwell, asked the driver to stop, and got out. His girlfriend’s co-worker called police and left the site with another colleague, leaving Tsybulnik alone with Reed.Two police officers arrived at the scene and took Reed in to sober up, telling Tsybulnik to come back in a few hours and pick him up.Tsybulnik told RFE/RL that when she arrived at the police station later, Reed was being questioned, without a lawyer or interpreter present, by two men who introduced themselves as employees of the Federal Security Service (FSB).Tsybulnik was told that her boyfriend was accused of endangering the lives of the policemen who brought him in by yanking the driver’s arm and elbowing another officer who tried to intervene.However, the case against Reed has been marred by inconsistencies. Video evidence reviewed in court appeared to show no evidence that the police vehicle swerved as a result of Reed’s actions, as alleged by the police officers.Speaking before the judge, the officers themselves have claimed to have no memory of key moments in the journey, and have retracted parts of their statements on several occasions or failed to answer simple questions from Reed’s defense team.Reed is one of several American citizens to face trial in Russia in recent years on charges that their families, supporters, and in some cases the U.S. government have said appear trumped up.Last month, another former U.S. Marine, 50-year-old Paul Whelan, was sentenced by a court in Moscow to 16 years in prison for espionage which he, his supporters, and the U.S. government have questioned. 
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Tropical Storm Isaias is churning across the Caribbean after forming near Puerto Rico on Wednesday night.Isaias became the earliest ninth named storm on record in the Atlantic, eclipsing a nearly 15-year record set by Irene, which formed on August 7, 2005.Tropical storm warnings are in place for much of the Caribbean, including Puerto Rico, U.S. and British Virgin Islands, St. Martin, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Turks and Caicos, and part of the Bahamas.Heavy rains, flash flooding and strong winds are expected for the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico on Thursday.The current path of Tropical Storm Isaias could move the storm towards Florida by this weekend.
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Mexico’s Supreme Court has rejected an injunction that could have decriminalized abortions in the Gulf State of Veracruz, in the mostly Conservative Catholic country.The Supreme Court judges voted Wednesday 4-1 against removing articles from the criminal code concerning abortion in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, saying the Veracruz Legislature did not fail to act on the federal government’s instruction because there was already law on the subject.Activist Pascale Brennan, who favors legalized abortion, said the majority of judges based their decision on technical issues with the order rather than on the issue of abortion itself.Brennan said he and others favoring abortions will continue their pursuit of legalized abortions in Veracruz, where the procedure is now only allowed in the case of rape, with a police report verification and only within 90 days.Just two of Mexico’s 32 states allow for legalized abortion, Oaxaca and Mexico City.  
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The United States is pulling almost 12,000 troops from Germany, following through on President Donald Trump’s call to reduce the U.S. military footprint overseas. While defense department officials say the move will boost American security, critics see the move as punishment for a country Trump has criticized as “delinquent” in NATO defense spending. VOA’s diplomatic correspondent Cindy Saine reports from Washington.
Produced by: Bronwyn Benito
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El Salvador’s former defense minister, General David Munguía Payes, is under house arrest, a week after he was detained for being involved in a pact with gangs. A judge on Wednesday issued the order for General Payes, who prosecutors allege acted as part of a criminal conspiracy when he failed to carry out his duties for a gang truce to lower the country’s soaring murder rate in 2012. One prosecutor said, the decision for Munguía’s house arrest order was based on concerns about his hypertension. Aside from being confined to his house, Munguía is barred from contacting others implicated in the case. The Associated Press said, the administration of former President Mauricio Funes allegedly made a pact with the Mara Salvatrucha and Barrio gangs to reduce the country’s murder rate in exchange for jailed gang leaders being transferred from maximum security to medium security prisons. Funes, who denies any collusion with gangs, fled to Nicaragua, where he was granted citizenship last year. It’s unclear if Funes will be returned to El Salvador, where he faces charges, including embezzlement.  
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Italy’s coast guard said on Wednesday it had rescued nearly 100 migrants on a “half deflated” dinghy off the coast of Libya after authorities in other countries failed to intervene.The coast guard said the inflatable boat was spotted by aircraft on Tuesday afternoon in the Libyan Search and Rescue (SAR) zone, “without an engine and half deflated.””The Libyan authority responsible for search and rescue activities at sea did not take over the coordination of the rescue operations due to the lack of naval resources,” the coast guard said in a statement.The coast guard then informed Maltese authorities, whose search and rescue zone is close to that of Libya.It said it also alerted Gibraltar, as a supply vessel flying the Gibraltar flag was nine nautical miles from the dinghy, as well as French authorities due to a Total oil platform in the area.France replied there were no French-flagged vessels in the Libyan area of responsibility, it said.”The Italian coast guard, amid the persistent silence of the Maltese and Gibraltar authorities, then took over the coordination of the rescue,” the coast guard said, sending a vessel to rescue the people.The 84 migrants, who included six women and two children, were transferred at dawn on Wednesday from their “almost sunk” dinghy to the Italian ship, which on Wednesday was headed for the island of Lampedusa.The reception center on the island is already overcrowded with migrants who have been arriving daily by the hundreds in recent weeks.More than 300 people, mainly Tunisians, arrived in Lampedusa during the night from Tuesday to Wednesday on board 13 boats.On Monday night, Malta’s coast guard rescued a group of 94 migrants in the Mediterranean, most of whom later tested positive for coronavirus, Malta health authorities said.
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Despite acquiescing to a compromise solution at last week’s rancorous but ultimately successful EU summit, Dutch diplomats are offering no apology for their country’s tough stand on financial assistance to the members worst hit by the global pandemic.Netherlands Prime Minister Mark Rutte and other leaders of what became known as “the frugal four” argued against a more generous relief offer promoted by France and Germany before settling on a package comprising $460 billion in grants and $424 billion in loans.In an interview with VOA, Andre Haspels, the Netherlands’ ambassador to the United States, maintained that the tough medicine that Dutch officials prescribed for the suffering EU countries was no worse than what his government had delivered to its own citizens.Structural changes sought“Yes, we were seen by some countries as being too strict, too tough,” acknowledged Haspels, who is nearing the one-year mark of his term in Washington. What Rutte was trying to do, he said, was to introduce structural changes so that a house that easily catches fire won’t have to rely on emergency extinguishers.Such reforms can be tough, he acknowledged, revealing during the interview that he was personally affected by some of the Netherlands’ painful reforms.When Haspels joined his nation’s foreign ministry in 1987, he thought he had a clear idea of when he would retire and the pension he would receive. Halfway through his career, Dutch society began coming to grips with the fact that people are living longer while population growth remains low.Andre Haspels, Netherlands ambassador to the United States since August 2019. (Embassy of the Netherlands in the U.S.)Ten years and many arguments and protests later, the nation settled on an arrangement that “trade unions, employers, insurance companies, pension funds” could all accept, Haspels said. The resolution doesn’t mean a dream come true for everyone; instead, it is dream revised for most, including career diplomats.“We’re still in relatively secure positions as government officials,” Haspels said, but they, like everyone else in the country, will have to rely not only on the government, but also on private plans to supplement their retirement.It means “a lot more responsibility for the individual,” he said, admitting that he will get a smaller pension than he had once expected and will have to work until age 67 before he can collect those benefits.On the plus side, the future will be more “sustainable for my children and grandchildren,” said the 58-year-old father of four.Less for grantsHaspels said Dutch representatives at the summit insisted on reducing the amount of pandemic-related relief money issued as grants to less wealthy nations because that was what most Dutch citizens wanted.“Two of our main opposition parties were very much against transferring money to the EU,” he said. Plus, Haspels said, his government saw the summit as an opportunity to discuss some countries’ long-standing promises of reform.However tough Rutte might have sounded in Brussels, most observers credit him for keeping the Netherlands firmly in the EU despite some voices in his country crying for a “Nexit,” fashioned after Brexit.At present, two-thirds of Dutch citizens support continued membership in the EU, but Haspels said euroskeptic sentiments “are always going to be there,” likely in all EU member states. “Even after a country exits, the debate continues,” he said with an eye to the ongoing argument in Britain.
 
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The U.S. military has accused Russia of sending weapons and mercenaries to Libya in an attempt to gain a foothold in the north African country. U.S. Africa Command’s latest accusation against Russia came on July 24, as Libya’s rival camps face off in a battle over the strategic central coastal city of Sirte. The Pentagon released photos that it claims show Russia providing supplies and equipment to the Wagner group, a Russian private military company. Vadim Allen has the story, narrated by Anna Rice.
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A lawyer for an alleged Rwandan ex-spy chief living in France says his client denies allegations that he was involved in Rwanda’s 1994 genocide.  Aloys Ntiwiragabo is now under investigation by French prosecutors.In an interview with VOA, lawyer Benjamin Chouai said his client Aloys Ntiwiragabo has been living in France for years.One of two lawyers defending Ntiwiragabo, Chouai said French authorities have been fully aware of his client’s whereabouts, since Ntiwiragabo applied for legal status here.French judicial authorities said Saturday they had opened a crimes against humanity probe targeting Ntiwiragabo.The move followed a report by investigative news site Mediapart, which tracked the former intelligence chief and his wife to a suburb of Orleans, about 110 kilometers south of Paris.The former International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, or ICTR, once identified Ntiwiragabo as one of the architects of the Rwandan genocide that killed about 800,000 people.But, the AFP news agency reports the ICTR, now succeeded by another mechanism, had long ago dropped an arrest warrant against Ntiwiragabo, as did French and Rwandan authorities.Reports suggest investigators seem to have lost track of him years ago.Lawyer Chouai said his client was not in hiding.He said Ntiwiragabo never hid his real identity in France, and is available now to answer investigators’ questions. His client strongly contests the Mediapart report, Chouai says, and insists he played no role in the genocide.Radio France International reports Ntiwiragabo remained in Rwanda’s military during the genocide but at least initially sided against a key organizer of the killings.Ntiwiragabo also authored a 2018 book offering his version of the broader 1990s Great Lakes conflict, through French publishing house Editions Scribe.The French probe into his actions follows the May arrest in France of another major genocide suspect. Felicien Kabuga was accused of bankrolling the genocide. The 84-year-old had been hiding for years outside Paris and is now appealing his transfer to Arusha, Tanzania to face trial.Alain Gauthier, who heads a French genocide survivors’ group, estimates several dozen other suspects remain at large in France. He denounces the slowness of France’s judicial system.Other alleged suspects include Agathe Habyarimana, widow of the former Rwandan president, whose death helped trigger the genocide. She lives outside of Paris. 
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Greece will this year return 1.4 billion euros to pensioners whose income was slashed during the financial crisis of the past decade, the country’s prime minister said on Wednesday. Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ conservative government made the decision following a top court ruling which said that some pension cuts imposed in 2015-2016 were illegal. Mitsotakis said the one-off payment applies only to main pensions — not supplementary pensions or benefits. The money will be distributed to about 2 million private and public sector pensioners, a government official said. The decision is expected to burden this year’s budget. Greece’s economy is seen shrinking by up to 10 percent this year due a nationwide lockdown the government imposed to contain the spread of the coronavirus. “This particular cost touches the limits of the country’s fiscal potential,” Mitsotakis told lawmakers. “There is no room for further provisions.” Under the terms of three international bailouts in 2010-2015, Greece cut state pensions several times to reduce spending and make the system viable. The country still has the highest debt-to-GDP ratio in the eurozone and the health pandemic dashed its hopes for strong growth this year. Its finances are being closely monitored by the country’s international lenders, the European Union and the IMF. 
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Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko announced he had tested positive but successfully overcome the novel coronavirus on Tuesday — adding a new twist to a charged presidential election season in the former Soviet republic often called the “last dictatorship in Europe.”Lukashenko, 65, revealed the news during a Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, candidate for the presidential elections, reacts during a meeting with her supporters in Minsk, Belarus, July 19, 2020.Svetlana Tikhanovskaya — whose husband, the political blogger Sergei Tikhanovsky currently sits in jail on what she says are trumped up charges — has emerged as the opposition’s lead candidate and a political star by taking direct aim at what she says is Lukashenko’s legacy of repression.“Yes, I was scared at first,” she said in her first televised speech. “I know what depths this government can go to in order to preserve its place. But I am no longer scared.”Protests against the government have been met with brutal police force and arrests of demonstrators and journalists. Since May, more than 1,000 people have been detained by police, according to the Vysna Human Rights Center.Belarusians attend a meeting in support of Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, candidate for the presidential elections, in Hlybokaje, Belarus, July 24, 2020.Tsikhanovskaya says she has ferreted her young children out of the country amid government threats as she has embarked on her campaign.What Virus?But Lukashenko’s announcement that he tested positive for the coronavirus — and breezily survived —- also again highlighted the Belarusian leader’s controversial attitude towards the global pandemic.Indeed, as COVID-19 has infected millions worldwide, Lukashenko has dismissed fear of the virus as mass “psychosis” — a minor health issue he has said could be easily cured with a shot of vodka, a hot sauna, or doing farm work or strenuous exercise.As much of the world shuttered its economies to stamp out the virus, Lukashenko ordered that life in his country go on as usual.Belarus’ national soccer league continued to play throughout the spring.  Schools were opened after a short delay. A mass Victory Day celebration to mark the 75th anniversary of the Soviet Union’s defeat of Nazi Germany went off as scheduled in May. Participation by government employees was in some cases mandatory.Official statistics show Belarus with nearly 70,000 infections and just over 500 deaths.Government critics argue those figures far underrepresent the real number of cases.“It’s hard to convince someone a disease isn’t scary if it killed your relative. It’s hard to convince someone life is good when you’ve lost your job due because the coronavirus is affecting the global economy,” says Andrej Stryzhak of #ByCovid19, a volunteer group that has emerged to help doctors and hospitals deal with the pandemic.Civil Society SurgeLacking federal support, Belarusian civil society has rallied to address the health crisis.Volunteers have raised money to buy personal protective gear for hospitals and schools. Restaurants have donated food. Hotels provide rooms pro bono to medical workers. Private businesses have contributed funds.That collective activism has now shifted to politics ahead of the August 9th election, with volunteers helping to organize rallies, spread campaign information, and sign up as election monitors for the vote.“The coronavirus has strongly influenced how Belarusians look at the vote,” says Stryzhak of #ByCovid19 in an interview with VOA.“Now people are taking matters into their own hands. Belarus has awakened.”In turn, Lukashenko has claimed nefarious outside forces are staging a street revolution that would inflict chaos on a country of 9 million that he alone has ruled since the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991.In what some observers saw as an ominous sign, the Belta state news agency reported security services had detained 32 “foreign mercenaries” on Wednesday, without elaborating.
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Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli, who had COVID-19, said the pandemic lockdown made him feel “humiliated and offended” by depriving him of his freedom to come and go as he wanted.
Bocelli spoke at a panel Monday in a Senate conference room, where he was introduced by right-wing opposition leader Matteo Salvini, who has railed against the government’s stringent measures to combat the coronavirus outbreak.  
The singer’s announcement in May that he had recovered from the virus came weeks after his Easter Sunday performance in Milan’s empty cathedral. At the time, Bocelli said that when he learned on March 10 that he had tested positive, just as the nation was going into lockdown, “I jumped into the pool, I felt well” and had only a slight fever. He apparently was referring to a private pool at his residence, as public gym pools were closed by then.
Bocelli told the conference at the Senate that he resented not being able to leave his home even though he “committed no crime” and revealed, without providing details, that he violated that lockdown restriction.
At the height of lockdown, Italians could only leave home to go to essential jobs, walk dogs or buy food or medicine.  
Dismayed, Health Ministry Undersecretary Pierpaolo Sileri on Tuesday said that perhaps Bocelli “wanted to express the inconvenience of every Italian who, because of lockdown, stayed home.”
“I wouldn’t have said those words, but I imagine he’ll be able to explain it somehow,” Sileri added.
The conference was held on the eve of Premier Giuseppe Conte’s appearance in the Senate, set for later Tuesday, where he was expected to lay out his center-left government’s case for extending a state of emergency for the pandemic, which expires on July 31.
The emergency status allowed Conte to bypass Parliament or even his Cabinet in decreeing a string of measures aimed at slowing the spread of the outbreak in the country where it first emerged in Europe, and would go on to claim more than 35,000 lives.
Bocelli told the conference that at first his children told him to be careful about the virus when he first started having doubts about its severity, “but as time passed, I know lots of people, but I didn’t know anyone who went into intensive care.”
At the worst point of the outbreak, as many as 4,000 people were in intensive care in Italy, a country of 60 million, with several hundred virus-linked deaths on some days.
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Brazil’s decision to seek charges against political cartoonists has been met with derision by experts who say authorities should focus on addressing the issues the artists satirized, including poor policing and a weak pandemic response, instead of trying to silence the media.The government of President Jair Bolsonaro is investigating five cartoonists and one blogger over satirical cartoons that his government alleges violate national security.On June 15, Brazilian Minister of Justice André Mendonça issued a series of tweets calling on federal police and prosecutors to investigate Renato Aroeira for a June 14 illustration that showed Bolsonaro using a paintbrush to transform the Red Cross medical symbol into a swastika.Bolsonaro, who had previously tested positive for the coronavirus, has been widely criticized for sidelining medical experts in Brazil’s handling of the pandemic, which has become the worst in the world outside of the United States.Mendonça also called for an investigation into Ricardo Noblat, a prominent journalist who runs a blog for the Brazilian weekly Veja, for reposting Aroeira’s cartoon on his Twitter feed.  
 
The Justice Ministry says the cartoon violates Article 26 of the National Security Law, which criminalizes slander and defamation of heads of state and allows up to four years in prison.
 
The opposition party, Sustainability Network, requested that the court suspend the investigation.
 
The request was criticized by at least one lawmaker, who argued on Twitter that by associating the president with Nazis, the cartoon had pushed the boundaries of freedom of expression.
 
In a separate case, Folha de São Pauloreported on June 13 that four of its contributing cartoonists – Alberto Benett, Laerte Coutinho, João Montanaro and Claudio Mor – were named in a criminal complaint filed by Defenda PM, a military police association.Defenda PM said the cartoons, published in December 2019, “embarrassed” their members by depicting an incident of police activity that triggered a stampede resulting in civilian deaths.
 
The Ministry of Justice did not respond to VOA’s email requesting comment.
 
The Brazil embassy in Washington referred VOA to a June 15 tweet by Bolsonaro’s special secretary for social media, which says “false accusation of crime is a crime.”
 
“Noblat and the cartoonist are accusing the president of the very serious crime of Nazism,” a translation of the tweet read. “Unless they prove their accusation, which is impossible, they incur false imputation of crime and will answer for that crime.”FILE – Demonstrators unfurl a banner with a cartoon image of Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro with a paintbrush, insinuating he transformed a red cross into a swastika, during an anti-Bolsonaro protest, in Brasilia, Brazil, June 21, 2020.International rights groups condemned the legal action.”A hallmark of strong, secure, legitimate government is its ability to weather the mere lampoons of an impudent cartoonist,” Terry Anderson, executive director of Cartoonists Rights Network International (CRNI), told VOA. “Evidently Brazil has no such governance.”Deaths by stampedeDefenda PM said the December 2019 Folha de São Paulo cartoons humiliated their members.The cartoons were published in response to a Dec. 1 police chase in Paraisopolis, Sao Paulo’s second-largest slum, in which officers opened fire near a street party of about 5,000 people, triggering a stampede that killed nine.A January report by Rio de Janeiro’s Public Security Institute – a state-government subsidized civic research and community outreach organization – says police were responsible for 43% of all violent deaths in that state in 2019.Reuters last month reported that Brazil omitted complaints of police violence from an annual human rights report, sparking allegations of a cover-up of excessive force by law enforcement.”The criminal complaint filed by Defenda PM, a military police association, against four cartoonists and Folha de São Paulo newspaper, is also an example of the attempt to use the criminal system to intimidate and harass people who express opinions that should be protected in a democracy,” said César Muñoz, Americas senior researcher for U.S.-headquartered Human Rights Watch.”Defenda PM said that their cartoons ’embarrass’ military police officers,” he added. “What should embarrass them is not the cartoons, but the almost daily release of videos and other evidence showing military police using violence against unarmed people and breaking the law.”The Brazilian Association of Investigative Journalism (ABRAJI) echoed that sentiment, expressing concern that Brazil’s top justice officials would invoke national security laws to “defend the President of the Republic from a critical cartoon on his government.””While every citizen has the legal right to seek compensation when he feels his honor has been injured, using the power of the state and a law created during a dark period in the country’s history is disproportionate,” said ABRAJI board member Maria Esperidião, alluding to the National Security Law’s 1969 inception under a Brazilian junta.”The strategy suggests that the real objective was to intimidate the press and restrict freedom of expression,” she said. “Therefore, it gives the impression that the state is using its power against civil society.”Concerns about crackdownAnderson, of the cartoonists network, said the spate of criminal cases – and timing amid the pandemic – represents the realization of long-held concern for members of his organization.COVID-19: The Hit on Press FreedomAmid emergency measures and lockdowns globally, journalists are arrested, attacked or blocked from reporting on COVID-19.”In June we released a statement articulating our fears about irreparable damage to the profession of cartooning during and after the global pandemic, the primary reason being the convenient pretext it provides to authoritarians, populists and nationalists to further lean in to their most repressive impulses,” he added.”Thus far that would seem to be borne out by what is occurring in Brazil, where a beleaguered leader, who all objective observers agree has presided over a disastrous response to COVID-19, now leads an administration that has developed a marked sensitivity to cartoons.”Some information for this report came from the Associated Press and Reuters.
 
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