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To our members and to society at large,

Free Speech Union Brasil (FSU-BR) has completed its first month of activity, with achievements that would make an organisation proud if it had been active for years. In so little time, we have already secured tangible victories, achieving national visibility in defence of the cause.

The Free Speech Union model (an international alliance of organisations defending freedom of expression), already present in five countries, has arrived in Brazil, and its instant success in the country leaves no doubt: the Brazilian people were crying out for this.

This report presents the highlights of FSU Brazil’s work in just one month of activity.

We hope these results convey our enthusiasm for the cause.

The Board

April 12, 2026

Reversal in the Monark case

FSU Brazil achieved what seemed impossible: reversing fortune in favour of our member Bruno Aiub, who goes by the name Monark (a famous podcast host often referred to as “the Brazilian Joe Rogan”). Thanks to FSU Brazil’s decisive action, Monark was able to be defended in court by highly qualified lawyers with academic work in the field of freedom of expression, and they achieved something of even greater symbolic value than a favourable court ruling: persuading the Public Prosecutor’s Office itself to withdraw the accusation it had brought against Monark, on 31 March, days after the defence was submitted. (For now, the presenter has won the battle but not yet the war: the case still awaits a court decision.)

The prosecuting authority belatedly acknowledged (four years after the facts) what sensible voices had pointed out from the start: Monark never defended Nazism or antisemitism on his programme, but merely expressed his anarchist ideology, defending absolute freedom of expression and association in what concerns the state’s intervention. These absolute freedoms in Monark’s political creed would, by definition, include even Nazis and antisemites within their scope of protection, although the presenter strongly condemned those groups on the programme and argued that they should be fought by society in other ways.

A pioneering podcast host in the country, Monark had been unjustly cancelled and subjected to a media lynching through sheer misunderstanding of his remarks, leading to loss of sponsors and, in the end, the loss of the very podcast he had helped to found. The misunderstanding of his remarks also led to that lawsuit from the Public Prosecutor’s Office, demanding the payment of R$ 4 million (roughly 800,000 USD) in “collective moral damages”.

In 2023, Monark was offered a settlement under which the Public Prosecutor’s Office would refrain from bringing the action. One of the conditions demanded was that the podcast host make a public statement renouncing his anarchist ideas and defending that the state be granted powers to ban Nazi parties. In other words, the picture was one where the state was trying to coerce an individual into renouncing his anti-state ideas.

Faced with that prospect, Monark followed the example of the Greek philosopher Socrates, who, in 399 BC, chose to die at the hands of the state sooner than renounce his beliefs. Monark adopted the same stance and refused to renounce his ideas — but, fortunately, has had more luck than the Greek philosopher so far, inspiring all Brazilians to follow his example and not give up fighting for their freedom of expression.

Monark commented on his victory in court (albeit a temporary one): “I thank Free Speech Union Brasil for helping me in this fight. I am pleased that the Public Prosecutor’s Office has regained its sanity, because there was clearly no attack on any Jewish community, or anything of the sort. It is also a victory for Brazil — a victory for the possibility of discussing delicate and important issues.”

(Temporary) defeat of the Misogyny Bill

FSU Brazil helped to “bury” (in the words of one member of parliament) the Misogyny Criminalisation Bill (PL 896/2023). According to several sources, an agreement was made that the bill would not be put to vote in the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies before the elections.

The bill, which was one of the greatest threats to freedom of expression in the Brazilian legislature, sought to turn into a crime the extremely vague conduct of “practising prejudice on grounds of misogyny” (hatred of or aversion to women). In practice, the bill might grant almost limitless powers to police chiefs, prosecutors and judges to criminalise individuals for any speech whatsoever (including speech of social value, such as scientific debates or political criticism of women in positions of power) by a sort of mind-reading criterion, based on the allegation that the citizen had been internally motivated by prejudice against women.

The bill was “buried” (at least for now) in reaction to an unfavourable wave of public opinion, to which FSU Brazil contributed through an intense social media campaign launched on 16 March, in the organization’s very first days of activity.

Traces of the campaign (such as images and text drafted by FSU-BR) were found in far-flung places, such as Telegram groups, by supporters of the bill, who devoted themselves to investigating the “attacks on social media” the bill had been suffering.

The impact of the campaign was also evidenced by the official poll on the Senate website. After a targeted week-long campaign, with calls to action, FSU Brazil managed to reverse the poll: what had begun as an overwhelming majority in favour of criminalising “misogyny” came to show a majority against:

FSU Brazil’s scoop: Flávio Bolsonaro’s explanation for his vote

Still in the context of the debates on the Misogyny Bill, FSU (represented by its Communications Director, journalist David Ágape) was responsible for a national scoop, being the first organisation to extract from Senator and presidential pre-candidate Flávio Bolsonaro (PL-RJ) an explanation for his vote in favour of the censorial bill.

The senator told FSU Brazil he had voted in favour of the bill because circumstances had forced him to do so, to avoid falling into a “trap” (in his words) set up by his rivals in the main left-wing party, and that he hoped his allies in the Chamber would overturn the bill that had then been approved in the Senate.

The senator’s explanation, obtained by FSU Brazil, had national repercussions and helped reinforce in the public debate, in an election year, the issue of censorship of so-called “misogynistic” speech.

The Censorship Traffic Light

In the wake of the campaign against the Misogyny Bill, FSU launched the “Censorship Traffic Light”, its permanent legislative monitoring project. FSU’s goal is to be Brazilian society’s chief sentinel against bills that threaten free speech.

The Censorship Traffic Light classifies bills into 🔴THREATS (bills that must be stopped), 🟡RISKS (bills that raise the alarm but may be modified to remove the risk of censorship), and 🟢PROTECTIONS (bills that provide greater guarantees) for freedom of expression in Brazil.

Likewise, the Traffic Light classifies provisions of laws already in force, to indicate which parts of Brazilian legislation should be reformed or repealed to guarantee freedom of expression. The aim is to guide FSU Brazil’s legislative front of action.

Anti-censorship legislative action

FSU does not confine itself to campaigning against extisting bills in Congress: it also has its own agenda, promoting draft legislation to defend freedom of expression, an activity it has already begun to carry out in its first month of existence.

Thus, at the same time as FSU fought for the Misogyny Bill to be wholly rejected, the organization has drafted amendment proposals (in dialogue with members of parliament) to reduce the bill’s harms or even turn it into something with a net positive effect for freedom of expression in Brazil, using the controversy raised by the bill as an opportunity to correct longstanding problems in the country’s pre-existing “Racism Act”, which the controversy helped make more visible.

Likewise, FSU Brazil has already begun discussions with members of parliament to reform the legal provisions that have been allowing million-dollar lawsuits to be filed demanding “collective moral damages” for speech (such as the lawsuit filed against FSU Brazil’s member, Monark). The goal is that this type of lawsuit should cease to exist as an instrument of intimidation against Brazilians who make use of their free expression.

“Not Messias”

FSU also gained prominence by promoting the petition “Messias, não” (“Not Messias”), intended to gather signatures demanding that the Brazilian Senate reject the nomination of the Attorney General of the Union, Jorge Messias, to the office of Justice of the Supreme Federal Court.

As of the present date, the petition has already gathered 12,000 signatures in one week.

As grounds for the petition, FSU cited Messias’s history of action against freedom of expression, especially while heading the National Prosecutor’s Office for the Defence of Democracy (PNDD) – a body dubbed the “Ministry of Truth” by critics, as it has been used by the federal government to intimidate opponents through threats of lawsuits for “disinformation” against the government.

Media appearances

FSU Brazil has enjoyed much exposure in the media in its first month of existence, an encouraging sign for the organisation’s future.

The organisation’s president, Eli Vieira, and vice-president, Hugo Freitas, appeared in the journalist Claudio Dantas’s programme to discuss Monark’s case. They took the opportunity to explain the purpose of the new anti-censorship organisation in Brazil, inspired by its British namesake.

Vice-president Hugo Freitas returned in another edition of the programme to explain a report by the US Congress denouncing censorship in Brazil.

The president and vice-president of FSU Brazil were also invited onto the podcast Tapa da Mão Invisível, hosted by Paulo Fuchs, to explain how the Misogyny and Antisemitism Bills in Congress threatened freedom of expression.

The partial judicial victory of FSU Brazil and its member Monark, upon the retreat of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, was reported by all the country’s main media groups, such as the newspaper Folha de São Paulo and the news site G1 (from the Globo group).

The newspaper Estado de São Paulo even devoted an editorial to the case, with the title “Freedom of expression, albeit belatedly” and the standfirst: “The shelving of the Monark case corrects a glaring error but exposes a persistent vice: the willingness of part of society and of the institutions to criminalise controversial opinions.”

Conclusions

Few civil society organisations achieve tangible victories so soon after being launched. Less than a month after beginning its efforts, Free Speech Union Brasil had already scored a victory in a nationally famous freedom of expression court case and helped stop a censorship bill in Congress, among other actions.

Moreover, FSU Brazil has enjoyed instant popular success, which clearly points to the existence, in Brazil, of pent-up demand for an organisation working for the cause of free expression along our lines.

FSU Brazil quickly gained more than 7,000 followers on social media in its first few weeks and its posts have had an engagement rate above 10%, an exceptionally high figure by market standards.

All these results point to a strongly positive prognosis for Free Speech Union Brasil.

Donate to FSU Brazil

The results obtained in FSU Brazil’s first month of activity depended on an intense concentration of effort. To maintain these results sustainably over time, FSU Brazil depends on you.

If you are not yet affiliated, it will be a pleasure to have your presence among our members, who are the chief people responsible for all these achievements. Join through the form at fsu.org.br/filie-se.

You may also help through donations of any amount, which may be sent by any of the means below:

Stripe donations :

Donate

Bank transfers:

Bank name: BS2 SA

SWIFT code: BBONKYKYXXX

Account holder: FSU BR UNIAO PELA LIBERDADE DE EXPRESSAO

Account number / IBAN: KY6531630600010511952300

Currency: USD

Intermediary bank (if required): The Bank of New York Mellon

Intermediary SWIFT: IRVTUS3N

ABA: 021000018

Yesterday, on March 24, 2026, the Brazilian Federal Senate unanimously voted to criminalise “misogyny” under vague terms, by approving Bill 896/2023.

Brazil uses a bicameral system, so the new offense has not yet been made into law. Instead, it will still be sent to the Chamber of Deputies, where it can be approved, amended, or rejected.

Under the proposed statute, which is now up to Brazil’s 513 deputies to consider, two new offenses would be added to the country’s already extensive hate speech provisions:

1) “Insulting someone, offending their dignity or decorum on grounds of [...] misogyny” (Article 2-A of Law No. 7,716, of 1989, or “Racism Act”), punishable by imprisonment from 2 to 5 years, plus a fine, without the possibility of a statute of limitations or bail;

2) “To practice, induce, or incite discrimination or prejudice [...] based on misogyny” (Article 20 of the same statute), punishable by imprisonment from 1 to 3 years, plus a fine, also without the possibility of a statute of limitations or bail.

The bill vaguely defines misogyny, for criminal purposes, as “any conduct that externalises hatred or aversion toward women”.

In the voting session, the rapporteur for the bill, senator Soraya Thronicke, cited as examples words that had been directed against her by a journalist (“tramp”, “slut”, “gang leader”) and that had been ruled by a Brazilian judge to constitute free speech.

She also cited members of the redpill movement multiple times as desired targets of criminalisation.

The current situation

Brazil’s current hate crime law is probably the most open in the entire world, giving the state essentially unlimited powers to criminally prosecute individuals on the grounds that they “practiced prejudice”.

In other words, literally any conduct is prosecutable, just as long as the police chief, prosecutor, or judge considers that the accused was internally motivated by prejudice — something that Free Speech Union Brasil (FSU-BR) has termed “institutionalised mind-reading”.

These draconian provisions were first instituted after the passing of a 1989 law nicknamed the “Racism Act”, shortly after the country instated a new democratic constitution after decades of military rule.

The detour beginning in 1990

Ever since 1951, Brazilian law already included several misdemeanors targeting concrete acts of racial discrimination, such as refusing access to someone to a hotel, educational institution or job based on race. However, speech itself was generally exempted from prosecution if it did not constitute a separate offense.

This changed in 1990, when an amendment was made to the new Racism Act of 1989, dramatically expanding the scope of prosecution to the overbroad description of “practicing prejudice”, which has broadly been interpreted to include speech.

On the same occasions, lawmakers also broadened the Act to encompass any prejudice based on ethnicity, nationality or religion.

Social and political pressure towards protecting disprivileged groups has since made it taboo to propose reform or even question the draconian 1990 provision, which is, therefore, rarely criticised even by legal scholars, who have, thus far, mostly abdicated their social duty of pointing out flaws in criminal legislation, for fear of being branded as racist.

As a consequence, rather than fixing the threat for free speech posed by the 1989 Racism Act, legislators have continuously made expansions to it.

This started as soon as 1997, when several expansions were made, including a new provision allowing for immediate judicial orders of confiscation or censorship against content deemed prejudiced, before the accused had a chance to defend himself or was even investigated; and a new provision of book burning (or other forms of “destruction of the confiscated material”) as a result of a criminal conviction.

Expansion by the courts

The most controversial turn happened in 2019, when the Brazilian Supreme Federal Court (STF) ruled that Congress was violating the Constitution in failing to protect LGBT groups by passing legislation criminalising homophobia and transphobia (despite the fact that the country’s 1988 Constitution featured no such wording).

Therefore, the STF ruled that the Racism Act should be read as if it contained a provision including prejudice against gay and trans people in those same overbroad offenses, despite the fact that the text contained no such provision.

This ruling was controversial, because it appeared to violate the nullum crimen sine lege principle enshrined in article 5, item XXXIX of the Brazilian Constitution, which explicitly stated that no crime could exist if not previously defined as such in statutory law.

In the justices’ opinions, an explicitly political argument was made that the Court should be the one to enact this criminalisation, lest the newly-elected right-wing president Jair Bolsonaro should veto legislation hypothetically passed by Congress to that effect. (At the time, Bolsonaro was himself known for past declarations widely labeled homophobic.)

This novel interpretation to the Racism Act proved to be the most problematic in the Act’s history. For example, it has been providing a legal foundation for the prosecution of multiple gender-critical feminists for alleged transphobia — all based on mind-reading with reference to a vague criminal provision that did not even exist in black-letter law, but rather constituted a “pseudo-crime” imposed by judicial fiat.

This even resulted in one Brazilian, the gender-critical feminist Isabella Cêpa, being legally granted political asylum in Europe to flee persecution from a trans Congresswoman who had demanded her arrest for stating that she was in fact a man.

Besides high-profile cases such as that one, several lesser-known cases exist across Brazil where defendants have been illegally convicted out of of analogy in malam partem to expand the Racism Act’s draconian provisions to conducts not provided for by its text, such as speech deemed to constitute prejudice against people of other regions within Brazil.

The criminalisation of jokes

In 2023, a major expansion made by Congress to the Racism Act included a specific crime against insults made on the basis of race, skin color, ethnicity or nationality, to preclude the possibility of a statute of limitations or bail.

The 2023 revision was dubbed the “Anti-Joke Act” by its opponents, because it also notably included a provision for it to be treated as an aggravating factor if any conduct covered by the Racism Act was practiced “for fun, entertainment, or leisure”, as a result of pressure from activist groups promoting the newly-coined academic concept of “recreational racism”.

In other words, it was determined that telling a joke should be treated as a more serious offense than making the same statement in earnest. This poorly-redacted revision sought to enforce a complete reversal from the centuries-old civil-law concept of animus jocandi, whereby joking intent was understood to negate the criminal mens rea required to constitute a criminal offense at all.

Furthermore, the 2023 act introduced a striking new sanction: an individual ban from venues dedicated to artistic or cultural performances open to the public — effectively exposing Brazilian comedians to the prospect of being barred from performing altogether, if government authorities deemed their past jokes to be offensive against minorities or religious or national groups.

These new legislative provisions have been most famously applied against the comedian Léo Lins, who has been repeatedly targeted in the courts, subjected to gag orders and even sentenced to prison for comedy shows deemed politically incorrect (although Mr. Lins specifically has had some success in overturning these measures in the upper courts and, so far, has not been incarcerated).

The Anti-Joke Act passed the Chamber of Deputies almost unanimously in December 2022, with support across the political aisle in a merely symbolic voting process, with only one party out of 23 — the NOVO party, rooted in classical liberalism — voting against it.

Even the then-ruling government of president Jair Bolsonaro — who had risen to the presidency in no small part due to his brazenly politically incorrect rhetoric — supported the bill, which highlights the taboo that currently exists Brazil against questioning hate speech laws, as well as the lack of robust social and political checks against the advance of censorship — which is precisely the gap that the newly-founded Free Speech Union Brasil aims to fill.

Threats of further expansion

In March 16, 2026, only 4 days after its public debut, Free Speech Union Brasil launched a massive social media campaign against the Senate’s Bill 896/2023, which proposed to expand Brazil’s draconian hate speech laws — already the world’s vaguest — to punish speech vaguely claimed to be anti-woman.

Accusations of misogyny are frequently leveraged in Brazilian public discourse whenever a powerful woman is challenged, most notably by former president Dilma Rousseff, who has plainly stated that the campaign for her destitution was motivated by misogyny, and, more recently, by the Brazilian first-lady Rosângela Lula da Silva (known as “Janja”), who has repeatedly resorted to that accusation to respond to critics of hers.

Free Speech Union Brasil attempted to demonstrate in its campaign that turning this vague accusation into a potentially criminal one would have a profoundly negative chilling effect in public discourse, regardless of the speaker or the target’s political orientation.

FSU-BR’s campaign earned the notable support of Nine Borges, a public intellectual who knew the dangers of Brazil’s mind-reading hate speech laws firsthand, as she had been criminally targeted herself with the accusation of “transphobia” due to criticism leveraged against a trans member of the Lula government (whom she had criticised for the way she was deploying her department’s financial resources).

Borges herself mentioned this when announcing her support for FSU-BR’s campaign on social media, stating that women should stand for liberty even when censorship is imposed in their name, lest they become the next targets when a different preferred group is involved.

FSU-BR’s campaign also had a notable impact in Brazil’s public forum more broadly, with several notable political commentators picking up on the theme of misogyny, trailing on FSU-BR’s footsteps, with many going further to denounce a wave of allegedly misandric laws. There had been no comparable buzz in public discourse before FSU-BR launched its campaign.

Even members of Congress acknowledged the newfound resistance to Bill 896/2023, with the left-wing deputy Talíria Petrone demanding attention from her voters by posting on X on March 24 that “sectors of the far-right” were already mobilizing against the bill.

In addition, the right-wing senator Damares Alves dedicated a speech in the Senate to acknowledge that Bill 896/2023 had “divided Brazil” and that the senators’ offices had been inundated with calls, with “an enormous group in Brazil” singling her out specifically for her past praises of the legislative bill.

This buzz was reflected in the Senate’s official opinion poll for Bill 896/2023. In March 17, early in FSU-BR’s campaign, the opposition to the bill was trailing far behind, with only 1,539 people voting “No” versus 6,019 voting “Yes”.

However, by the time the bill was voted 7 days later, after a concerted effort by FSU-BR, the tide had turned dramatically, with the “Yes” vote having only increased to 6,856, while the FSU-BR-led “No” vote had grown spectacularly to overtake it at 7,676.

Despite our efforts, and despite some of the senators themselves having acknowledged the pressure, the anti-misogyny bill passed the Senate unanimously.

However, FSU-BR’s earlier buzz paved the path for an even louder outrage at the Senate’s unanimous vote, with multiple members in the lower house publicly pledging to act differently than their counterparts in the upper chamber and resist against the project.

The battle is ongoing and may be a long war, because senator Alves herself publicly warned, during the voting session, that plans for a law criminalising ageist speech were next.

Update: On April 7, 2026, members of the Chamber of Deputies announced that, as a result of the controversy surrounding the bill, an agreement was made to delay it, ensuring that it would not be put to vote until after the country’s national elections on October 2026.

(This article was updated on March 26, 2026, to rectify the dates of each of the innovations in the Racism Act in the years 1989, 1990 and 1997. The article was also updated on April 14, 2026, to report the news that an agreement was announced on April 7 to delay the voting of the bill, as well as to rectify and give further information regarding the 1997 amendments to the Racism Act that specifically reflected on the application of the heading of the article 20 of said legislation.)

In recent years Brazil has experienced an unprecedented expansion of judicial and political restrictions on speech. Courts have ordered content removed globally, critics of authorities have faced criminal investigations for speech offences, and public debate has grown increasingly constrained. In response, a group of journalists, lawyers and commentators have founded FSU-BR (Free Speech Union Brasil) — a civil association dedicated to defending freedom of expression and assisting individuals targeted by censorship.

Free Speech Under Threat in Brazil — FSU-BR Is Launched. Join Us.

Brazil is experiencing its worst period of violations of freedom of expression since 1968. Citizens have recently been imprisoned for their opinions. Comedians have faced threats of jail. Journalists and commentators have fled the country. Even members of parliament — whose speech is constitutionally “inviolable” — have seen that protection weakened.

In this climate, censorship has become a political weapon. It is condemned when used by opponents and embraced when convenient for those temporarily in power.

Even basic information about censorship in Brazil is scarce. We do not know how many people have been silenced or expelled from social media under the justification of protecting elections or safeguarding the “honour” of public authorities. Nor do we know how many suffer abuses in the country’s interior, far from large urban centres and public scrutiny.

But we do know one thing: a growing number of Brazilians are afraid to speak their minds.

To defend those who have been silenced — in all the ways this now happens — and to promote a culture of liberty, we founded FSU-BR, an association with a singular focus: removing the shackles that constrain free expression in Brazil.

Our online presence has now been launched, and you are invited to join.

Join us

By becoming a member, you will help us defend freedom of expression in Brazil. Members may also request assistance if their freedom of expression is unjustly violated. Each case will be analysed individually so that no one is left to face intimidation alone for expressing their views.

If you wish, you may also contribute further as a supporting member or donor.

Behind the scenes, we are already at work. We are drafting proposals for legislative reform to remove legal mechanisms currently used for censorship in Brazil. We have already assisted an individual affected by a court order that demanded the removal of content not only in Brazil but worldwide.

We have also provided assistance to our member Bruno “Monark” Aiub, ensuring that he was defended by lawyers. His case is a striking injustice: a communicator targeted in a witch hunt and persecuted by the state for expressing an anti-censorship opinion about Nazism — speech that is protected under Brazilian freedom-of-expression jurisprudence according to precedents of the Supreme Federal Court. As far as it depends on us, this injustice will be reversed.

Understanding the history of censorship in Brazil is also essential. We are already conducting original research to uncover why the country was once compared to the Ottoman Empire for banning Gutenberg’s printing press for three centuries. We will also promote educational initiatives and maintain a strong presence in public debate to resist attempts to silence speech.

Contrary to what many in the post-dictatorship generation believed, censorship never truly disappeared in Brazil.

It has returned.

We tolerated its reappearance for too long.

Together we can build a less repressive country — one where creativity does not turn into fear of speaking. A country where the next generation never has to learn the bitter taste of being unable to open its mouth.

Honorary Members

During the months leading up to the founding of FSU-BR, we invited individuals we admire to join our Advisory Board of Honorary Members. These distinguished figures will help guide the association and lead by example.

They include:

André Marsiglia

Lawyer, commentator, and specialist in freedom of expression.

Marsiglia has acted as counsel in several notable censorship cases in Brazil, including the 2019 case involving Revista Crusoé. What most surprises him in his work defending free speech, he says, is that many people claim to support freedom of expression without understanding it.

“Brazil is an authoritarian and bureaucratic country that proclaims liberty on paper but often prevents it from being exercised in practice.”

Claudio Dantas

Award-winning investigative journalist and commentator.

Dantas is a prominent figure in the Brazilian press, known for his investigative work and commitment to his principles. His reporting uncovered a unit within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that persecuted Brazilians in exile during the Military Regime — a dark episode that might otherwise have remained forgotten.

Glenn Greenwald

Investigative journalist and commentator.

Greenwald is internationally known for his investigative reporting on government surveillance and political abuses. Long before becoming a journalist, he was already a steadfast defender of freedom of expression.

Jon Benjamin

CEO of Free Speech Union International and former British ambassador to Chile, Ghana, and Mexico.

Benjamin has been helping FSU-BR become part of an international network of free-speech organisations.

Reflecting on his career defending free speech, he says:

“What surprised me most is how committed some people who grew up enjoying an open and free society can be to cancelling freedom of expression for others.”

“Too many people believe they possess a single version of the truth and hold it with such zeal and certainty that they convince themselves anyone who disagrees with them is not merely mistaken, but malicious — and therefore deserves to be silenced.”

“That is why it is essential to constantly reaffirm the fundamental importance of freedom of expression as a cornerstone of a free society.”

“This means defending the right to speak for everyone — especially those with whom we disagree.”

“I am delighted to see the concept of the Free Speech Union now reaching Brazil, the most important country in Latin America, from where a strong reaffirmation of free expression can resonate throughout the region.”

Leandro Narloch

Journalist and bestselling author.

Narloch is widely known among Brazilian readers for presenting fresh perspectives on subjects ranging from the country’s history to environmental debates. His work has also helped stimulate broader interest in science among Brazilian audiences.

Lygia Maria

Journalist, columnist, and PhD in communication.

Through her weekly columns, Lygia Maria has increasingly emerged as a voice of moderation and a defender of fundamental freedoms such as freedom of expression. FSU-BR is fortunate to count on her advice.

Michael Shellenberger

Journalist, activist, and bestselling author.

Shellenberger has developed a close connection with Brazil. When many Brazilians came to know him through the Twitter Files Brazil series in 2024, he was already speaking Portuguese. Through his organisation Civilization Works, he continues to contribute to debates about liberty in Brazil.

It was during one of the annual London meetings of international free-speech advocates that the idea of creating FSU-BR first emerged.

Penélope Nova

Communicator and producer.

Penélope Nova has used her public platform to educate audiences on subjects often considered taboo.

Reflecting on her experience in public debate, she told FSU-BR:

“Perhaps what surprised me most was realising that although I remained the same person — someone who defends individual liberties and respects diversity of ideas — over two decades I came to be seen as representing completely opposite ideological camps.”

“The irony is that I never changed sides.”

“I simply continued to follow the truth with intellectual honesty.”

Roberto Freire

Lawyer, politician, and member of Brazil’s 1988 Constituent Assembly.

When we invited Freire to become an honorary member of FSU-BR, we mentioned that we wished Brazil were more like the United States in protecting freedom of expression.

Freire replied simply: the Brazilian Constitution itself leaves little to be desired in this regard.

What Brazil lacks is not constitutional guarantees — but the political will to honour them.