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AGÊNCIA PÚBLICA
Founded in 2011 by women reporters, Agência Pública is the first non-profit investigative news agency in Brazil.
Why Is This Brazilian Town Displaying Nazi Photographs?
Society
Matheus Santino

Why Is This Brazilian Town Displaying Nazi Photographs?

In a small town in southern Brazil, photos of Nazi flags and Hitler supporters are displayed in the entrance hall of a publish building. An investigation by independent media Agência Pública looks into how the Santa Catarina state, a bastion of support of former president Jair Bolsonaro, has a long history of extremist groups and hate speech.

DONA EMMA — Whoever visits the entrance hall of the building of the head of education in Dona Emma, a town with just over 4,000 inhabitants in the southern Brazilian, is faced with a wall full of historical photographs of local families. Among them there are images of flags with the Nazi swastika.

One of the photographs shows children and a man in front of a school. In the background there is a Brazilian flag and a flag of Nazi Germany. The image is accompanied by the caption: "The private German school was maintained by the parents of the students with funds from Germany.”

In another photograph, seven men appear posing while one of them holds a Nazi flag. In the caption, they are described as "Hitler supporters in Nova Esperança," a neighborhood in Dona Emma. The photographs bearing Nazi symbols are mixed with images of the families who founded the region. There is no indication of the names of the people in those in which the swastika appears.

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Photo of a case of eggs a chicken farm in Brazil
Economy
Luíza Lanza and Daniel Tozzi Mendes

Cracking Food Prices, On The Front Line Of Brazil's Egg Rush

With the price of meat on the rise, Brazilians have turned to eggs. The country is now producing 55 billion eggs a year, presenting challenges for farmers and raising questions of animal welfare. And in Brazil's "Egg Capital", the climate crisis is complicating matters further.

CURITIBA — "After the 15th, it's almost impossible to eat meat," says salesperson Cristina Souza Brito, as she leaves a supermarket in Curitiba, capital of the state of Paraná in southern Brazil.

“Chicken or beef is only available when the salary comes at the beginning of the month," she adds. "Then we get by with omelettes, fried or boiled eggs."

Since the beginning of 2021, this has been the routine in the house where she lives with her daughter, a niece and two siblings. Brazilians might be replacing meat with eggs because of their budgets: meat has increased in price above inflation and, in April 2022, it cost 42.6% more than in early 2020, according to the Institute of Applied Economic Research.

The group Food for Justice pointed out that at the end of 2020, eggs had been the food that Brazilians had been consuming more of (+18.8%), and meat recorded the biggest drop (-44%), which reinforces the idea of substitution between the two foods.

Health and economic crisis aside, Brazilians have never eaten as many eggs as they do now. Egg consumption in the country has more than doubled in the last 15 years, rising from the annual mark of 120 eggs per capita in 2007 to 257 in 2021, according to figures from the Brazilian Animal Protein Association. The current level of eggs consumed by each Brazilian over the course of a year is higher than the world average, which is 227.

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photo of a brown building and power lines
Society
Rubens Valente

Why Brazil Is Excavating An Infamous Torture Center 40 Years Later

As the country gears up for a politically-charged run-off election, a team of archaeologists, historians and forensics experts are set to excavate the grounds and buildings of one of the worst torture centers in São Paulo, trying to recover the country's painful history of torture during the military regime.

In 1964, the Brazilian Armed Forces carried out a coup, with support from the United States government, and installed a dictatorship that lasted for over 20 years. Although free elections returned to the country in the 1980s and a new constitution was approved in 1988, Brazil has lagged other South American countries when it comes to reconciling itself with the aftermaths of the dictatorship.

Challenging the crimes of the military elites is portrayed as a “leftist” cause in Brazil. Right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro has even celebrated — on several occasions, including during the Congress session that voted to impeach former president Dilma Rousseff — the torture that was committed by the regime.

In contrast, countries like Argentina and Chile have made big strides in reckoning with their bloody past and prosecuting members of the military juntas.

SÂO PAULO — For the first time, an archaeological, historical and forensic project in Brazil intends to excavate the grounds and buildings of the former headquarters of a DOI-CODI (Department of Information Operations - Center for Internal Defense Operations), the much feared intelligence agency that carried out violent political repression during Brazil’s military dictatorship (1964-1985).

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photo of a smartphone with Jair Bolsonaro's photo and youtube
Geopolitics
Laura Scofield and Matheus Santino

New Probe Finds Pro-Bolsonaro Fake News Dominated Social Media Through Campaign

Ahead of Brazil's national elections Sunday, the most interacted-with posts on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Telegram and WhatsApp contradict trustworthy information about the public’s voting intentions.

SÂO PAULO — If you only got your news from social media, you might be mistaken for thinking that Jair Bolsonaro is leading the polls for Brazil’s upcoming presidential elections, which will take place this Sunday. Such a view flies in the face of what most of the polling institutes registered with the Superior Electoral Court indicate.

An exclusive investigation by the Brazilian investigative journalism agency Agência Pública has revealed how the most interacted-with and shared posts in Brazil on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Telegram and WhatsApp share data and polls that suggest victory is certain for the incumbent Bolsonaro, as well as propagating conspiracy theories based on false allegations that research institutes carrying out polling have been bribed by Bolsonaro’s main rival, former president Luís Inácio Lula da Silva, or by his party, the Workers’ Party.

Agência Pública’s reporters analyzed the most-shared posts containing the phrase “pesquisa eleitoral” [electoral polls] in the period between the official start of the campaigning period, on August 16, to September 6. The analysis revealed that the most interacted-with and shared posts on social media spread false information or predicted victory for Jair Bolsonaro.

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Picture of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro
Society
*David Nemer

Jair Bolsonaro, A Perfect Example Of Why Autocrats Hate Women

Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping and Jair Bolsonaro all share what seems a natural antipathy toward women — yet it is ultimately because they fear them. And with good reason: When women participate in political movements, they are more likely to succeed — which is bad news for authoritarianism.

-Analysis-

SÂO PAULO — In the first televised debate between the candidates for the Brazilian presidential elections, on August 28, the incumbent Jair Bolsonaro offered yet another demonstration of his misogyny. He was asked by journalist Vera Magalhães about the drop in vaccination coverage in the country and its connection to the misinformation about vaccines, which the president himself spread during the pandemic.

“Vera, I couldn’t expect anything else from you," he responded. "You sleep thinking about me, have some kind of passion for me. You can't take sides in a debate like this. You make lying accusations about me. You’re an embarrassment to Brazilian journalism.”

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Photo of Bolsonaro and Trump supporters in Brasilia, Brazil
Geopolitics
Alice Maciel

How The Trump Universe Is Backing Bolsonaro’s Reelection Bid In Brazil

Brazil’s Agência Pública reveals that Gettr, the social network run by Donald Trump's former adviser Jason Miller, has sponsored conservative conferences in Brazil ahead of October’s presidential elections, which Steve Bannon has called the most important in South American history.

Over the past year, the U.S. social network Gettr, run by Donald Trump's former adviser Jason Miller, has been sponsoring political events that support the re-election campaign of Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil’s far-right president. The events have been organized by the Instituto Conservador Liberal (ICL), the think tank set up by congressman Eduardo Bolsonaro, the president’s son, and Sérgio Sant'Ana, a lawyer and former adviser to the Ministry of Education.

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Photo from above of two boys playing soccer with a tennis ball
Society
Alice De Souza, Clarissa Levy, Mariama Correia, Diana Cariboni

Probe Finds Brazil's Religious Homeschooling Groups Encourage Corporal Punishment

As Brazil prepares to legalize homeschooling — a campaign promise that President Bolsonaro hopes to fulfill before October's elections — a disturbing investigation by openDemocracy and Agência Pública finds that Brazil's religious homeschooling groups, supported by ultraconservative U.S. associations, are giving parents instructions on how to spank their children while dodging the law.

Training dished out by Brazil’s homeschooling industry is encouraging parents to spank their children “calmly and patiently” as a teaching tool, a disturbing investigation by openDemocracy and Agência Pública has found.

Books, websites and videos seen by our journalists give parents tips on how to spank children and dodge the law — by avoiding major injuries, visible marks and public humiliation. They also say parents who do not punish their children with “the rod” do not love God or their children.

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In The Amazon, Retracing The Last Steps Of Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira
Society
Ciro Barros, Rubens Valente, Avener Prado, José Medeiros

In The Amazon, Retracing The Last Steps Of Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira

The murder of Brazil indigenist Bruno Pereira and British journalist Dom Phillips is shocking. Still, once looking more closely, it is not necessarily a surprise considering both the violence in Brazil and the situation in the rain forest under President Jair Bolsonaro.

Worldcrunch has turned to independent Brazilian media Agência Pública for special coverage of the murder of Brazil indigenist Bruno Pereira and British journalist Dom Phillips in Brazil’s Amazon. And their deaths is not a coincidence, nor fully unexpected. Thousands of environmentalist and land-defenders have been killed worldwide over the past two decades, with Brazil being one of the most murderous countries.

In Brazil, the situation in the Amazon worsened under President Jair Bolsonaro, who has pushed to develop the Amazon as well as cut funds to protection and indigenous government bodies. During a 2019 press conference, Bolsonaro responded to a question posed by Phillips by saying: “The Amazon is ours, not yours.”

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