Courage in Free Speech Awards

I think a lot of us talk about courage in an abstract way,

and I'll even sometimes hear people talk and talk about a courageous person,

and they'll say that person is fearless. But I've never met anybody that does anything courageous that's fearless.

Most of the people that I know that engage in courageous actions are terrified the entire time.

And I can testify to the fact that the three individuals who received tonight's awards

have been terrified and terrorized over the last several years as they've spoken out for free speech in Brazil.

And so this year's Westminster Free Speech Courage Awards goes to Congressman Marcel Van Hatten,

independent journalist Davide Agape, and independent journalist Eli Vieira.

Let's start with you, Marcel. You are currently being persecuted by the government of Brazil despite being a member of Congress.

Tell us what the government is doing to persecute you and why.

Thank you so much.

If we have to praise someone's courage, it is yours, actually.

We share the love.

We share the love for Brazil, we share the love for freedom of expression, and we also share the,

I want to say hate because they say that I have hate speech, but let me say it,

to authoritarianism and all this tyranny that we see going on, not only in Brazil and so many other places in the world.

The three of us here, we are actually subject to persecution by a government that uses the judicial branch to interfere in the political arena

and in the journalistic world and the academy and wherever else you name it, to try to maintain its agenda alive.

And what I see is that our movement is growing bigger and bigger, and that is what makes them afraid of us,

because they see they cannot convince us with argument, they cannot win us with their speech and their ideas that are not good anyways after

all, and that's why they have to resort to force and to violence.

In my specific case,

one of the cases, because now I have some,

but the most important one is after I gave a speech in the Parliament's floor about Filipe Martins,

who was unjustly imprisoned based on false information,

and the federal police agent who demanded his imprisonment to Justice Alexandre de Moraes probably knew about this false information and if not, he was very incompetent not to double check that information, that fraudulent documents.

After going to the House floor and talking about this case and actually denouncing the federal police agent of Lula's government,

instead... of an investigation against a federal police agent,

the federal police started an investigation against myself

and indicted me after that investigation. I refused actually to even go to the federal police.

They summoned me, I said I'm not going, I have parliamentary immunity.

By the way, I'm in England, London, so the first time in history where parliamentary immunity was put down in wards was the Bill of Rights 1689.

So for me it's actually nice to see that I'm here receiving this prize tonight.

And in Brazil we have the parliamentary immunity since 1824 and Brazil is independent since 1822.

So the second year of independence, the first constitution of Brazil independent, we already had parliamentary immunity.

And this is not to protect us or those who are in Congress, it is to protect those who we represent.

People who expect in a democracy that we are free to speak, free to talk about our ideas, to give our opinions,

and if we are to be somehow punished by what we say, then we don't get re-elected.

Eli, tell us a little about what you and David are going through.

So we had to flee Brazil in November, and I want to thank Sylvie who gave me shelter in London.

They threw the book at us because we showed Alexandre de Moraes was keeping people in prison for their opinions on social media.

So we showed the whole process of profiling, ideological profiling going on at the Superior Electoral Court.

And the detainees were Bolsonaro supporters.

Some weren't even. I remember Ademir Domingos Pinto da Silva.

He was critical of both sides of the current polarization and he was kept in prison for tweets he published in 2018.

So way before that.

So they were detained, for those who don't know.

We had our January 6th moment in Brazil.

It was January 8th, 2023.

So Bolsonaro supporters were unhappy that Lula was back in power.

Lula was in prison for corruption.

So they had reason to be very upset about that.

And Lula was set free by the Supreme Court.

They didn't even pretend there was no proof that Lula was a corrupt politician.

They just claimed he was tried at the wrong court.

So it's the wrong zip code,

the wrong postcode.

And they claimed, of course,

that the judge who convicted Lula was not impartial,

which is rich, coming from people like Alexandre de Moraes, who imprisons people for their opinions.

So Alexandre de Moraes, he's many things.

He's a pseudo-intellectual who tried to use J.S. Mill to justify when he banished Twitter for 40 days in Brazil,

as well as Rumble, the video platform.

So first of all, he's a pseudo-intellectual.

He's not good at what he does.

He's not a good thinker in law, as he thinks himself to be,

even though he has a very good position in Brazil's most famous university, University of São Paulo.

And he's also a tyrant, like Marcel was saying.

Yeah, and I can't wait for to see Marcel vote for his impeachment when he's there in the Senate

So just sit and wait, of course I've been inconvenienced

having to flee your country and deciding 24 hours beforehand to leave your country is not easy

Had to leave my fiance behind David had to leave for a little bit his wife and his daughter who joined him later in America

So yeah But these inconveniences to our lives are nothing compared to

people like the Odessa Guardia a 74 year old who was imprisoned in a very bad health condition

Claison Cladiston Coenha Pereira who died in prison One of the protesters that Alessandro de Moraes imprisoned

Because I've shown them cases of a journalist Osvaldo Stacchio who was granted asylum in Spain

We've shown the case of Alan dos Santos Alan dos Santos was a great case

because the FBI agents came to Brazil the Minister for Justice at the time is Flavio

Gino who's a communist is now at the Supreme Court was appointed by Lula and Lula Bragg that was appointing a communist to be justice anyway,

and Alan so the FBI agents saw a video so Gino wanted him the agents to concur.

Oh what he's saying is a crime. It's not allowed to say these things No,

the FBI agent said those are just words So what he's saying here is not a crime in America.

So we're not extraditing him back to Brazil I can't go back to Brazil.

They dismissed the action against us But I we know that there are secret orders all our work Show it that justice Moraes have secret orders against

journalists against politicians So if we put our foot or feet in Brazil, we don't know if they Have orders to arrest us.

I Don't have another option Then tell the truth to my people to my country

That what's going on? I always thought there was an old woman

crying and Help these people this poor people many elderly poor that was in prison

for almost 17 years Because of coop they didn't did

so I Didn't have another option then do what I did

and I don't feel brave As I say as I said, I don't feel brave.

I just I had a duty and Did my work?

You are so Eli Davidi you guys are real-life heroes