Jean Wyllys already has a date to return and wants protection from the PF – 05/16/2023 – Mônica Bergamo

Former federal deputy Jean Wyllys has already set a date to return to Brazil. His return will take place later this semester, but the exact day is still kept secret while negotiations on his safety are not finalized.

The proximity of Wyllys’ return has pressured the Brazilian State to comply with a precautionary measure required in 2018 by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) and which, since then, has been ignored.

A meeting with members of the international body and members of the Lula government, scheduled for June 1, is eagerly awaited by defenders of the former parliamentarian. In it, a request will be presented for Federal Police (PF) agents to start doing their security in the country. It is not yet known whether the demand will be accepted by the federal government.

In 2018, the IACHR concluded that the rights to life and personal integrity of the then parliamentarian were “at serious risk” in the face of the threats he received and demanded that the Brazilian State ensure his safety. At the time, he was already living under the escort of the Legislative Police. The following year, as the attacks escalated, Wyllys relinquished the third term in the House for which he was elected and decided to self-exile.

Since the precautionary measure was granted by the commission, however, the Brazilian State would not have responded to several security requests made by the former deputy, making his return to Brazil unfeasible. According to lawyer Noemia Boianovsky, who represents Wyllys, many of the responses given during the administration of Jair Bolsonaro (PL) even denied the existence of a risk to his life.

“They said that he did not suffer from homophobia and that if he had been threatened, in fact, he would not have been a candidate. [à reeleição em 2018]. They denied the obvious: that there was a threat”, says the defender to the column.

“He [Wyllys] was living [praticamente] under house arrest [no Brasil]. It was very tough, but he decided not to take office because they were very forceful threats. They [os autores dos ataques] they had all the documentation and the address of his family”, he explains.

For the former executive secretary of the IACHR and executive director of the Brazilian think tank Washington Brazil Office (WBO), Paulo Abrão, the expectation is that the Lula government will mobilize its security structures to comply with an international decision and offer conditions for the return of Jean Wyllys. If this is confirmed, he claims, there would be an emblematic repositioning of the country in terms of the defense of human rights.

“We have the expectation that the Brazilian State will finally take this determination to protect Jean seriously, regardless of whether he takes up political office or not, [e viabilize] the return of a citizen to the full exercise of his rights, including political ones, and his freedom in an environment of social violence”, highlights Abrão.

“Perhaps Jean’s case is the initial step in a process that may allow the return of other people who went into self-exile under the Bolsonaro government. This historical sense is very important because it reconstitutes an international image of the country within an institutional framework. “, adds the executive director of the WBO. The Brazilian think thank acts with Boianovsky in the claim for compliance with the injunction and has the former parliamentarian as one of its ambassadors.

Abrão also points out that the State has to respond to the IACHR which security system it will offer the former deputy, and that this can be made possible in different ways, but that the country is obliged to structure a plan in consensus with Wyllys —which would be safer under the protection of the PF.

The former deputy’s lawyer, in turn, reiterates that the meeting with the IACHR and the federal government seeks, above all, to reinforce that compliance with the precautionary measure is necessary because Wyllys still does not feel safe in Brazil.

“He is very worried. We know that the threats come from a movement that is not yet extinct”, says Boianovsky. “But he has been without seeing his family for four and a half years, without seeing his mother. He needs to return to the country”, he concludes.

_{with BIANKA VIEIRA, KARINA MATIAS It is MANOELLA SMITH}

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