IV 
116TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION 
H. RES. 594 
Expressing profound concern about threats to human rights, the rule of 
law, democracy, and the environment in Brazil. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
SEPTEMBER 25, 2019 
Mr. GRIJALVA (for himself, Mr. DEFAZIO, Mr. ESPAILLAT, Mr. GARCI´A of Illi-
nois, Ms. HAALAND, Ms. NORTON, Ms. JACKSON LEE, Mr. JOHNSON of 
Georgia, Mr. KHANNA, Ms. MCCOLLUM, Mr. MCGOVERN, Mr. RUSH, Ms. 
WILD, Mr. POCAN, and Mr. HUFFMAN) submitted the following resolu-
tion; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, and in ad-
dition to the Committees on Financial Services, and the Judiciary, for a 
period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for 
consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the com-
mittee concerned 
RESOLUTION 
Expressing profound concern about threats to human rights, 
the rule of law, democracy, and the environment in Brazil. 
Whereas Brazil and the United States have an important 
strategic partnership and have cooperated closely on nu-
merous issues of mutual interest including trade, regional 
security, energy, the protection of the environment, and 
the fight against racial discrimination; 
Whereas in recent years Brazil made significant strides in 
strengthening democracy, reducing poverty, addressing 
racial and gender-based disparities, building a more just 
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and inclusive society, and reducing deforestation in the 
Amazon; 
Whereas Brazil contains about 60 percent of the Amazon 
rainforest and produces 6 percent of all oxygen generated 
by photosynthesis; 
Whereas, on October 28, 2018, far-right politician Jair 
Bolsonaro was elected president, in an election marred by 
the controversial disqualification of his leading opponent; 
Whereas President Bolsonaro praises Brazil’s former military 
dictatorship, which tortured 20,000 people and killed or 
disappeared 434 people, according to Brazil’s Special 
Commission on Political Killings and Disappearances; 
Whereas President Bolsonaro made his first foreign trip to 
the United States to meet President Trump, where he de-
clared that they ‘‘stand side by side in their efforts to en-
sure liberties and respect to traditional family lifestyles, 
respect to God, our Creator, against the gender ideology 
or the politically correct attitudes and against fake 
news.’’; 
Whereas President Trump praised President Bolsonaro and 
emphasized their ‘‘fantastic working relationship’’ and 
the ‘‘many views’’ they share; 
Whereas President Trump announced during their meeting 
he would unilaterally designate Brazil a ‘‘Major Non- 
NATO Ally’’, facilitating preferential treatment for 
Brazil with regard to military assistance and sales or use 
of military equipment; 
Whereas President Bolsonaro and officials from his govern-
ment have made statements and pursued policy reforms 
that threaten the human rights of vulnerable sectors of 
Brazilian society, including indigenous and Afro-Brazilian 
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peoples, members of the LGBTI community, land rights 
activists, the labor movement, and political opponents; 
Whereas President Bolsonaro has pledged that he will not 
even permit ‘‘a centimeter’’ to be demarcated for indige-
nous reserves or ‘‘quilombolas’’, the communities of de-
scendants of enslaved Africans that are home to over 
1,000,000 Afro-Brazilians; 
Whereas President Bolsonaro has referred to indigenous peo-
ples living in protected ancestral lands as ‘‘zoo animals’’; 
Whereas President Bolsonaro has said the Afro-Brazilian 
residents 
of 
quilombolas 
‘‘aren’t 
even 
good 
for 
procreation anymore’’; 
Whereas one of the first measures of the Bolsonaro adminis-
tration was to transfer the authority tasked with pro-
tecting the lands of indigenous peoples to the Ministry of 
Agriculture, widely known to be controlled by agri-
business interests that oppose indigenous and quilombola 
land rights; 
Whereas Bolsonaro administration officials announced their 
intention to open up vast protected areas of the Amazon, 
including indigenous territories, to mining, logging, and 
agricultural corporations, a move that is expected to lead 
to rampant deforestation and accelerate global warming; 
Whereas the rate of deforestation of the Amazon rainforest 
in Brazil increased by 88 percent in June 2019, com-
pared to the same period in 2018, according to Brazil’s 
National Institute of Space Research; 
Whereas, in August 2019, Brazil’s National Institute of 
Space Research announced that it had identified nearly 
40,000 fires in the Brazilian Amazon since the beginning 
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of the year, a phenomenon linked to deforestation and 
the expansion of ‘‘slash and burn’’ agriculture; 
Whereas Brazil’s foreign minister, Ernesto Araujo´, has re-
ferred to climate change as a plot by ‘‘cultural marxists’’; 
Whereas the Bolsonaro administration has made drastic cuts 
to Brazil’s environmental enforcement agency; 
Whereas, according to the international NGO, Global Wit-
ness, Brazil is one of the most dangerous countries in the 
world for land and environmental advocates; 
Whereas President Bolsonaro has publicly expressed support 
for the indiscriminate killing of criminal suspects by the 
police; 
Whereas, according to Brazil’s Institute of Public Security, 
police agents in Rio de Janeiro killed a record 432 people 
in the first three months of 2019; 
Whereas, on April 7, 2019, Afro-Brazilian musician Evaldo 
Rosa dos Santos was killed in Rio de Janeiro when mili-
tary troops shot his vehicle 80 times; 
Whereas, on February 4, 2019, Brazilian Justice Minister 
Sergio Moro introduced legislation that, according to 
Human Rights Watch, could significantly increase the 
quantity of unjustifiable killings perpetrated by police 
agents; 
Whereas, in March 2018, Afro-Brazilian LGBTQ activist and 
dissident politician Marielle Franco was assassinated, and 
the individuals who ordered her murder remain at large; 
Whereas homophobic hate crimes and killings have been in-
creasing throughout Brazil, as reported by the Wash-
ington Post, and openly gay Congressman Jean Wyllys 
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fled Brazil in January 2019, after receiving repeated 
death threats; 
Whereas President Bolsonaro has closed the 88-year-old Min-
istry of Labor, announced reforms that would effectively 
end the country’s labor justice system and eliminate the 
right to collective bargaining, and issued an Executive 
order that weakens labor inspection and enforcement, 
ends overtime and Sunday pay, and reduces paid vaca-
tions and severance payments; 
Whereas former Brazilian president Luiz Ina´cio Lula da 
Silva—the leading candidate in the October 2018 presi-
dential elections—was arrested on dubious charges of 
corruption, swiftly sentenced to 12 years in prison, and 
deemed legally ineligible to run for office; 
Whereas Brazilian authorities rejected a request by the 
United Nations Human Rights Committee to allow da 
Silva to run in the October 2018 elections, despite the 
Brazilian State’s legal ratified obligation to comply to the 
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; 
Whereas Sergio Moro, the presiding judge in da Silva’s case, 
acted in a clearly biased manner toward da Silva, vio-
lating his right to a fair and impartial judicial process 
under Brazilian law; 
Whereas, in June 2019, media outlets published leaked com-
munications exposing politically motivated collusion be-
tween Sergio Moro and prosecutors in da Silva’s case, 
with Moro providing strategic advice and sharing privi-
leged information with prosecutors; 
Whereas President Bolsonaro appointed Sergio Moro to the 
position of Minister of Justice and later announced that 
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he had promised to nominate Moro to the next open seat 
on Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court; and 
Whereas, in July 2017, a senior Department of Justice offi-
cial stated that it was ‘‘hard to imagine a better coopera-
tive relationship in recent history than that of the United 
States Department of Justice and the Brazilian prosecu-
tors’’ and cited the Department of Justice’s cooperation 
with the Lava Jato task force that charged and pros-
ecuted da Silva: Now, therefore, be it 
Resolved, That the House of Representatives— 
(1) calls on President Bolsonaro and members 
of his cabinet to abstain from hate speech and 
threats directed at minorities and to instead work to 
protect the human rights of all Brazilian citizens, re-
gardless of their race, gender, sexual orientation, or 
beliefs; 
(2) urges the Brazilian Government to protect 
indigenous peoples’ rights as guaranteed under the 
Brazilian Constitution, including the right to their 
own social organizations, customs, languages, and 
beliefs, and the right to their traditional lands; 
(3) urges Brazil’s authorities to protect work-
ers’ rights as stipulated under the International 
Labour Organization conventions, which Brazil has 
ratified, including the right to organize and bargain 
collectively; 
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(4) urges Brazil’s Government to take all pos-
sible actions to reduce deforestation of the Amazon 
rainforest within the country’s borders and take all 
necessary measures to ensure the elimination of ille-
gal deforestation by 2030, in accordance with Bra-
zil’s obligations under the United Nations Frame-
work Convention on Climate Change; 
(5) calls on the United States Government to 
oppose loans from the World Bank Group or the 
Inter-American Development Bank used to fund 
projects that are likely to contribute to further de-
forestation or fires within the rainforests located in 
the Amazon Basin; 
(6) urges Brazil’s judicial and police authorities 
to fully investigate the murder of Marielle Franco 
and work to identify and prosecute those who or-
dered her assassination; 
(7) urges Brazil’s judicial authorities, in par-
ticular the ministers of the Supreme Federal Court, 
to investigate allegations of unethical conduct by 
Sergio Moro, Federal prosecutor Deltan Dallagnol, 
and other agents involved in the judicial proceedings 
against former president da Silva; 
(8) directs the inspector general of the United 
States Department of Justice to perform a full re-
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view of the Department’s activities in Brazil to de-
termine whether United States Government agents 
have at any point encouraged or abetted unethical 
conduct perpetrated by Brazilian judicial agents in-
cluding members of the Lava Jato task force; 
(9) calls on Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court to 
urgently undertake an assessment of the merits of 
da Silva’s convictions and the fairness of the pro-
ceedings brought against him, and to release da 
Silva while his appeals are pending, as stipulated 
under Brazil’s Constitution; 
(10) calls on relevant international human 
rights organizations, such as the United Nations 
Human Rights Committee and the Inter-American 
Commission on Human Rights, to closely monitor 
the human rights situation in Brazil; and 
(11) expresses its sense that the United States 
should rescind Brazil’s designation as a Major Non- 
NATO Ally and suspend all assistance to Brazil’s 
military and police forces unless the Department of 
State formally certifies that effective measures are 
being taken to curtail unjustified extrajudicial 
killings by Brazilian State security agents, inves-
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tigate and prosecute the killings of activists, and 
comply with international human rights norms. 
Æ 
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