Brazil’s Bolsonaro urges Supreme Court to shelve ‘fake news’ probe

BRASILIA, (Reuters) President Jair Bolsonaro slammed Brazil’s Supreme Court yesterday for investigating an alleged disinformation and intimidation campaign by his supporters, as a political crisis deepened amid the country’s accelerating COVID19 outbreak.

In an escalating confrontation with the court, Bolsonaro decried courtordered police raids on

Wednesday into the homes of business leaders, bloggers and lawmakers accused of spreading lies and threatening foes on social media.

“The Supreme Court investigation is targeting those who support me,” the president told reporters. “We will not have another day like yesterday. Enough!”

“Don’t plunge Brazil into a political crisis,” he warned, urging the court to suspend the investigation.

On a social media broadcast, Bolsonaro said the court’s investigation was unconstitutional and any move to restrict fake news in Brazil would establish censorship in the country.

The crisis in Brasilia continued to distract from efforts to control an exploding coronavirus outbreak, which has killed more than 25,000 and infected more than 400,000 people in the country - second only to the United States in confirmed cases.

Criticism of the top court on pro-Bolsonaro social media last year, including calls for its closure and threats against judges, led the chief justice to open the probe into alleged financing and coordination of a “fake news” network.

Bolsonaro’s tensions with the judiciary boiled over last week, when a judge released a video of a cabinet meeting where one of Bolsonaro’s ministers said the Supreme Court justices should be jailed.