Our Story
WHO WE ARE
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DEFEND DEMOCRACY IN BRAZIL (DDB-NY) is a committee of Brazilian citizens and allies, based in New York City, who got together to defend democracy in Brazil. DDB-NY was formed in February 2016 by artists, scholars, human rights and environmental activists, social movements, political parties, and individuals concerned with the threat to the Brazilian democratic political system and the rule of law in the country.
what we do
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We stage awareness-raising actions such as protests, street performances, flash mobs, flyering actions, academic events, with the objective of calling the world’s attention to threats to Brazilian democracy.
We work in unisson and in solidarity with many social movements in Brazil with which we have deleoped strong ties, and help bring their voice to the international arena, for advocacy and denouncements.
We collaborate with international and local media outlets to inform journalists about the current political situation in Brazil and change fake or right-wing biased narratives.
We speak at events at the Universities, Schools, Community organizations and public spaces.
We write petitions, publish manifestos, notes, strategies and documents, within Defend Democracy in Brazil cohort, and in collaboration with other activists groups, networks of activists, artists, academics, and Unions, both in the US and Brazil. We support a leftist Internationalism as part of our core mission.
Our history
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The people's vote, which re-elected President Dilma Rousseff in 2014, is sovereign. As early as 2013, there were opposing forces engulfing the big media and sectors of the legislative, judiciary and executive powers, as well as a part of the Brazilian elite, who who worked to destabilize the sovereignty of the people and of the Brazilian Constitution, and illegally impeached President Rousseff in August 2016.
We believe that only the respect to the laws of the democratic State brought about by the popular vote will bring stability and prosperity to the people of Brazil, contributing to the real fight against widespread corruption and the obstruction of public policies as they are necessary to national and international growth.
Since the Parliamentary, Mediatic, Legislative and Executive Coup D’état that Brazil suffered in 2016, we have staged over 90 actions (through March/2020), which have included protests, street performances, flash mobs, flyering, speeches, interventions in parks, plazas, concerts, academic events, soccer stadiums, photo shoots and video creations.
We have also initiated a number of petitions, manifestos, wrote hundreds of Press Releases, Denouncements, notes, tweet actions, strategies and documents, within Defend Democracy in Brazil and with other activists groups, networks of activists, academics and US Unions.
We focus on advocacy in the media outlets and have brought important political figures and Human Rights defenders to major U.S. and Brazil’s media outlets to discuss, confront, denounce or interview, on themes from the impeachment of 2016 , through the constant cuts of social rights by the illegitimate government of Michel Temer, the unjust political imprisonment of Former President Lula da Silva, the tumultuous 2018 Presidential election process, among many others.
With a fascist elected in 2018 through dubious means of illegal campaign financing and the spread of Fake News, we joined the resistance and opposition against Jair Bolsonaro since November 2018, to safeguard our Racial diversity, Human and Gender Rights, Free and Critical Thinking, the natural resources and economic independence of Brazil.
We organized together with other groups in the voter registration campaign in 2022 for Brazilians living abroad and supported the founding of the Popular Commiittee of Struggle in the states of New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, which vote together in the New York Consulate in Presidential elections in Brazil. Together we launched a campaign to remove Bolsonaro and elect a leftist coalition government in 2022 with President Lula returning to power by popular vote.
We joined in the efforts of expanding leftist internationalism and in 2023 a group of us formed the #BrazilianswithPalestinians movement and joined the #shutitdown4Palestine coalition in New York.
We are currently incvolved in media advocacy and political formation of militants towards the 2024 electoral races in Brazil and in the U.S.
