STF Justice Notifies Bolsonaro to Justify Suggestion of Links Between NGOs and Fires

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Justice Alexandre de Moraes, of the Federal Supreme Court (STF), decided to notify President Jair Bolsonaro to justify the statements in which he assigns to NGOs the blame for forest fires in the Amazon.

The decision occurred on Wednesday, October 2nd, and grants the petition of the Alternative Civil Association Terrazul of Fortaleza.

The justice’s notification provides that Bolsonaro should answer eight questions related to statements he made in August. In the decision, Moraes points out that the petition has “prima facie relevance”.

In addition, he recalls that the request for clarification is provided for in the Penal Code and aims to shed light on “ambiguous circumstances” and “enable the future exercise of criminal prosecution,” “which is applicable in any form of crimes against honor”.

In August, Bolsonaro implied that the fires were related to the suspension of transfers from the Amazon Fund to projects. “There may be, and I am not affirming there is, a criminal action by these NGOs precisely to draw attention against me, against the government of Brazil,” he said at the time.

The speech had negative repercussions among environmentalists and also in the foreign press. The president never pointed out any evidence of the NGOs’ involvement with this year’s record number of fires.

Among the questions sent to the president are: “Which NGOs are supposed to be responsible for the fires in the Amazon rainforest?”; “If the respondent has knowledge of which NGOs they are, then why has no measure been taken against them so far, taking into consideration that they, according to him, have committed a crime?”; and “Is there conclusive evidence that NGOs that have had their funds canceled or reduced are actively taking part in the forest fires or is this nothing more than mere conjecture by the respondent?”.

The other questions are: “What did the respondent mean when he said that ‘everything suggests’? That is, is there any evidence that individuals intentionally visited ‘strategic’ places to film and ‘set’ fires? If so, what evidence is there and who are these individuals?”; “What did the respondent mean when he said that ‘this is not written’?”; “Which are the NGOs that ‘take billions of dollars’ and campaign against him?”; “What motivates the respondent to the conviction that NGOs are interested in burning in the Amazon? Which are these NGOs? If he knows who they are, why didn’t he nominally mention them?”; and “What is the reason for the respondent to believe that there are NGOs representing foreign interests? Which are these NGOs?”

In the decision, the Justice quotes an excerpt from the petition of the Alternative Civil Association Terrazul, in which it points out that “the respondent and his government have an outright aversion and promote a true crusade not only against civil society organizations but also against the environment. Proof of this is that, since he took office as President of the Republic, the respondent has repeatedly taken actions and edited legislation with the unequivocal intention of reducing the actions of civil society organizations”.

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