The GENEVA OBSERVER’S JAMIL CHADE has received death threats
| AUTORITARIAN REGIME When he’s not working for The Geneva Observer, Jamil Chade reports for UOL, Brazil’s largest internet portal. One of Brazil’s most respected and seasoned journalists, with a career spanning over twenty years, the quality of his work, together with his unwavering dedication to hold the powerful to account and to fearlessly defend press freedom, has earned him an enormous following in his country, counted in millions on his social media accounts. Jamil has won several prestigious journalism awards in Brazil. In 2021 and again in 2022, he was honored for his defense of democracy. But under an authoritarian regime such as Jair Bolsonaro’s, being a journalist can be dangerous. “The relationship between the press and the government has greatly deteriorated since the inauguration of President Jair Bolsonaro. He regularly attacks journalists and the media in his speeches,” notes Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF) in its 2022 press freedom index. (Full disclosure, I sit on the board of RSF’s Swiss chapter.) The attacks, however, are not only verbal. Last year, in Rome during the G20 summit, Jamil was violently assaulted in the street by the Brazilian president’s security forces. Last Friday, Jamil was unexpectedly absent from The G|O weekly editorial briefing. He had gone to the authorities, he told me afterwards, after having received death threats. These unjustifiable attempts at intimidation of our friend and colleague must stop. We condemn them in the strongest possible terms. – PHM |
