‘I felt scared when I came to Brazil’, says Portuguese journalist targeted by the PF

Portuguese journalist Sérgio Tavares declared this Tuesday, 23rd, that he was afraid of being taken to the Papuda Penitentiary Complex when he was detained by the Federal Police (PF) upon disembarking at Guarulhos Airport (SP) on February 25th for the demonstration for freedom of expression in the country, supported by former president Jair Bolsonaro (PL).

“I have already visited the five continents of the Earth”, began the Portuguese journalist at a hearing of the Senate Public Security Committee. “I already lived three years in Africa and three years in Asia. I lived in very complicated countries, like Indonesia, Angola and others like them. But I never felt the fear I felt when I came to Brazil.”

+ Read more news from Politics in the West

The Portuguese journalist stated that it was the “first time” he cried when saying goodbye to his 10 and 9 year old children. He said he felt “afraid of not coming back”, because “hundreds of Brazilians warned me and said: ‘Don’t go. You will be arrested. They will hurt you.’ I didn’t want to believe it.”

“I defend freedom of expression, and as Brazil is deprived of this freedom, I wanted to come”, explained Sérgio Tavares. “But I said goodbye to my children with tears in my eyes. It feels like I was feeling something,” he said.

Read also: “Portuguese journalist knows our ‘democracy’”

“And, in that terminal, when all those thousands of people passed through, people from all countries, of all colors, they all entered. One less. The Portuguese Sérgio Tavares,” he stated.

The Portuguese journalist said he found himself “alone, with a private passport and the Federal Police at the door”, without having any idea of ​​what “could happen”. He said he did not know whether he would be attacked, interrogated or arrested.

“I didn’t know if they were going to take me to Papuda, like the patriots on January 8th, without having done anything. I imagined myself in Papuda without being able to communicate with my family. Without even being able to defend myself. I figured, because that’s where we are. Therefore, I felt what I had never felt in my life. We are talking about Brazil”, he declared.

‘Portugal knows what happens in Brazil’

Portuguese journalist Sérgio Tavares said he had been warned again not to return to Brazil. “I received messages saying: ‘Don’t come back to Rio de Janeiro. You won’t, Sérgio,’” he said. “After what happened to you, they will do even worse, because you went to Washington and Brussels to denounce the atrocities. Now you’re going to jail.”

He stated that, although he re-entered Brazil without any problems due to a “divine miracle of the Holy Spirit”, he is afraid of the moment he leaves the country.

Read also: “Operation against Jordy is compared to dictatorship”

“Although I am in this House, in the Senate, I know that I am saying everything that no Brazilian can say. If any Brazilian were to say what I said here today, they would already have their account cancelled, they would already be arrested, guns pointed at their head, like they did to Carlos Jordy,” he declared.

Sérgio Tavares said that Brazilians do not need to “deceive themselves”, since “the Portuguese know well what is happening to Brazilians and they know their names. The Portuguese already know that the person responsible is not Lula, it is Alexandre de Moraes.”