Glenn Greenwald: 'Bolsonaro wants to recreate a climate of pressure and fear'

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US journalist Glenn Greenwald, who has become a thorn in the side for Brazil’s far-right president Jair Bolsonaro, is accused by the Brazilian prosecution services of “facilitating the commission” of cybercrime, alleging that he “helped, encouraged and guided” mobile phone hacking. The move, vigorously contested by Greenwald, centres on the revelations by the online investigative publication he co-founded and co-edits, The Intercept Brasil, about a vast corruption scandal in the South American country. In this interview with Mediapart’s US correspondent Mathieu Magnaudeix, Greenwald denounces the increasing attempts, in Brazil but also around the world, to “criminalise” journalism.

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US journalist Glenn Greenwald co-founded the investigative online publication The Intercept in 2013 and won the prestigious Pulitzer Prize for leading, earlier that same year, the reporting by British daily The Guardian of classified documents leaked by the NSA intelligence agency operative Edward Snowden revealing the intrusive global surveillance programmes led by the US and Britain.