Until recently, Brazilian NGOs’ greatest fear was being publicly smeared by a president who has baselessly accused Greenpeace of creating oil slicks, environmentalists of starting forest fires and Leonardo DiCaprio of bankrolling the arson. We are facing a scenario of arbitrary imprisonments.”Facebook Twitter Pinterest A forest fire in the town of Porto Velho, state of Rondônia, Brazil, on 9 September. “I could taste the wrongness in my mouth.”Members of the group felt the raid was politically motivated – and part of a broader assault on civil society by the government of Bolsonaro. With the government planning to tighten restrictions on public protests and relax regulations on the police, the space for civil society looks set to shrink. The Brazilian Association of Non-Governmental Organizations said the government was pursuing a strategy to delegitimize civil society.

Source: The Guardian December 05, 2019 08:26 UTC