The Guardian reports today…….
Brazilian lawyers and an influential human rights group including six former government ministers are seeking to indict the far-right president Jair Bolsonaro at the International Criminal Court for encouraging genocide against Brazil’s indigenous people.
Brazil’s Human Rights Advocacy Collective (CADHu) and the Dom Paulo Evaristo Arns Commission for Human Rights (Arns Commission) delivered an “informative note” to Fatou Bensouda, prosecutor at the international tribunal in the Hague late on Wednesday. It requested a “preliminary investigation of incitement to genocide and widespread systematic attacks against indigenous peoples” by Bolsonaro.
Bensouda will now request information from governments of Brazilian states and other countries, the United Nations and other intergovernmental organisations, NGOs and other sources to decide whether to request authorisation for an investigation, the groups said.
The non-partisan group of lawyers, former ministers and civil society activists said they had taken this drastic step against their own president because they believed Brazil faced an emergency situation.
“We believe there are elements that characterise genocide,” said José Carlos Dias, a former justice minister under the centre-right president Fernando Henrique Cardoso.