Securing Democracy: My Fight for Press Freedom and Justice in Bolsonaro’s Brazil

There is an increasingly violent and anti-democratic climate prevailing in Brazil as a result of the far-right, authoritarian, dictatorship-supporting movement of President Jair Bolsonaro, which consolidated substantial power in the election held at the end of 2018.

Glenn and the Intercept began their series of explosive exposes last June about rampant corruption at the highest levels of the Bolsonaro government, provoking a wave of violent threats, official acts of reprisal and a powerful fake news machine erected by the Bolsonaro movement against their enemies.

All of those seemingly endless multipronged attacks culminated in criminal charges brought against Glenn by a far-right prosecutor that have been widely condemned domestically and internationally as legally frivolous and a blatant assault on a free press.

The sense of danger and political violence in Glenn Greenwald and David Miranda lives and for many others in Brazil, began almost two years ago. On 14 March 2018, Marielle Franco – the LGBTQ+, black, favela-raised city councilwoman from Rio de Janeiro – was gunned down while riding in her car on the streets of Rio at roughly 9pm in a brutal political assassination. Franco was one of Glenn and David’s best friends as well as a rising political star, a vessel of hope to so many people marginalized for decades and who had no voice.

Because Glenn is a US citizen with a valid US passport, Glenn and David and their sons could leave Brazil at any time. They would be entitled to automatic US citizenship. But they will never leave Brazil.

This is a book about courage and a refusal to give into tyrany but instead to join hands with those who intend to fight against it.