European Parliament condemns murders of Phillips and Pereira in resolution

The European Parliament condemned this Thursday (7) the murders of British journalist Dom Phillips and indigenist Bruno Pereira and called on Brazilian authorities to carry out an “exhaustive, impartial and independent” investigation into the crimes.

The declaration is part of a resolution that addresses the situation of activists fighting for the defense of indigenous peoples and the environment in Brazilian territory. The text received 362 votes in favour, 16 against, while 200 abstentions were recorded.

The text inserts the deaths of Phillips and Pereira, in the Vale do Javari region, in Amazonas, as part of a wave of “increase in violence” against activists in Brazil. In addition, the European Parliament also disapproved of the attitudes of President Jair Bolsonaro.

On behalf of all the groups that pushed the resolution, Portuguese socialist MEP Isabel Santos spoke and said that the murders of Phillips and Pereira were the result of “Bolsonaro’s aggressive and intimidating rhetoric and his policies that ruined indigenous people and opened up the Amazon to wilder economic exploitation.

“These murders cannot go unpunished. We must go to the root of the problem and we cannot stop at the judgment that they executed them, “said the parliamentarian, who accused the Brazilian authorities of committing an “ecocide” and an “ethnocide” in the Amazon region.

The resolution passed this Thursday requires the Brazilian government to comply with the Paris Agreement on climate change, in addition to raising concerns about some environmental bills passed in Brazil. “They could result in an increase in deforestation”, the text points out.

MEPs demanded that the Bolsonaro government adopt “a new sustainable approach” to the Amazon rainforest and take “immediate measures” to prevent human rights violations and guarantee access to land and traditional livelihoods for the indigenous population.

In addition, the parliamentarians defended that the Regulation of Products Free of Deforestation, proposed by the European Commission, also includes in its clauses the protection of native peoples, with the objective that the violations of rights “are not linked to the production of products marketed in the country”. European market”.