A vida dos internos em comunidades terapêuticas é pular de inferno em inferno

‘Pai, não perdoa. Eles sabem o que fazem’. Gleice Barbosa Andrade admite que às vezes falta piedade no pensamento e na reza. Vive inconformada, tentando ajudar o filho a se livrar dos traumas gerados pela violência física e psicológica que ele sofreu em um centro de reabilitação antidrogas.

Há quase um ano, Gleice internou Bernardo* na Comunidade Terapêutica Centradeq-Credeq, em Lagoa Santa, no interior de Minas Gerais, porque estava desesperada, sem saber o que fazer com o filho de 15 anos que se ‘afundava na maconha’. Depois de oito meses pagando R$ 1,8 mil de mensalidade, encontrou o menino muito pior do que quando o entregou ao pastor dono da clínica. Hoje, Bernardo só consegue dormir com remédios e vive constantemente assustado.

O modelo de comunidades terapêuticas, instituições privadas de tratamento a dependentes químicos, é o preferido do governo. Nos últimos cinco anos, essas clínicas – normalmente ligadas à igrejas – receberam pelo menos R$ 250 milhões só da esfera federal. E devem receber mais, com a nova lei de drogas aprovada no Senado. O problema é que elas não têm fiscalização adequada – pior, não há dados objetivos que mostrem a eficiência desse modelo.

Em fevereiro, o Intercept mostrou que a comunidade terapêutica onde Bernardo ficou internado tratava os usuários de drogas com uma terapia baseada na superdosagem de remédios, trabalhos forçados, castigos físicos e humilhações. Apesar de funcionar de forma irregular, desrespeitando a legislação, a Centradeq recebia verbas de famílias e prefeituras e foi selecionada para receber dinheiro do governo federal em 2019. A entidade foi interditada em novembro e o Ministério Público Federal abriu um inquérito civil para apurar as irregularidades.

Mas, segundo o ex-interno Diogo Nogueira, depois da interdição ‘as pessoas que estavam na Centradeq foram libertadas de um inferno para cair em outros’. Conversamos com mais de 20 pessoas, entre ex-internos, familiares e profissionais de saúde, para entender o que aconteceu depois do fechamento da clínica. E encontramos um rastro de desassistência e novos abusos – em outras clínicas.

Uma não, cinco internações

Matheus* é magro, tem a pele morena e o rosto aparenta menos do que os 15 anos que recentemente completou. Seus olhos se movem rapidamente e sua postura transparece inteligência. Quando fala usa gírias e a esperteza de suas frases quase esconde o toque infantil, amedrontado, que existe no fundo de sua voz.

Desde os 12 anos ele roda entre clínicas de reabilitação para usuários de drogas. Passou o último aniversário em sua quinta internação em uma comunidade terapêutica. Nascido em uma pequena cidade no interior de Minas Gerais chamada Alvinópolis, ele já passou por quase todas regiões do estado peregrinando entre clínicas. Viveu nesse vaivém não por vontade própria, mas por consequência das irregularidades flagradas nas clínicas onde foi internado pela prefeitura de sua cidade.

Matheus ficou quatro meses em tratamento na Comunidade Terapêutica DeVida, localizada em Itabirito, a 180 quilômetros de sua cidade natal, até a clínica ser interditada por submeter os internos a superdosagem de remédios e maus tratos. Depois do fechamento desta comunidade, foi encaminhado para a Centradeq-Credeq, a clínica interditada em Lagoa Santa. Logo após a interdição da outra clínica, foi mandado para a Comunidade Terapêutica Contagem Progressiva, localizada no município de Contagem, na região metropolitana de Belo Horizonte, onde relata que apanhou de monitores ao menos quatro vezes.

“O meu menino, depois de todas essas internações, ficou pior, totalmente traumatizado” conta a mãe de Matheus, Rosineia Aparecida de Oliveira.

‘Não é fácil ver filho da gente com a cabeça atordoada e não saber a quem pedir ajuda.’

Há dois meses, depois de a promotoria de Contagem notificar a entidade sobre a ilegalidade da internação de adolescentes, Matheus foi reencaminhado de volta para Alvinópolis. Agora vive em um abrigo municipal, tomando diariamente quatro remédios psiquiátricos tarja preta.

“Não é fácil ver filho da gente com a cabeça atordoada e não saber a quem pedir ajuda, se aqueles que eram para proteger os direitos do meu filho mandaram ele para esses lugares”, desabafa.

Na peregrinação de Matheus em busca de tratamento, todos os parâmetros legais foram desconsiderados. No Brasil, o Estatuto da Criança e do Adolescentes, o ECA, define que crianças e jovens têm direito a tratamento de saúde específico para a idade, educação e convívio familiar. Em Minas Gerais, uma lei estadual proíbe a internação de menores de 18 anos em comunidades terapêuticas.

Mas Matheus foi encaminhado para cinco entidades deste tipo. Duas comunidades terapêuticas onde esteve foram interditadas por comprovação de maus-tratos. Foi retirado às pressas de três, a mando do Ministério Público. E, em pelo menos quatro, sofreu violências. Nas cinco, teve seu direito à educação negado – por isso, largou completamente os estudos. O garoto foi encaminhado para todos esses tratamentos à mando da Justiça, sob conhecimento do Conselho Tutelar e de seu município, que custeou com com dinheiro público as internações.

Internação, a única opção

Apesar de irregular, a história de Matheus está longe de ser um caso isolado.  O Relatório Nacional de Inspeção em Comunidades Terapêuticas, elaborado pelo Ministério Público Federal e Conselho Federal de Psicologia em 2017, aponta que é comum o encaminhamento de adolescentes para comunidades terapêuticas via medida judicial ou através de Conselhos Tutelares. O Intercept encontrou casos de internações deste tipo em todas as regiões do país.

Como o governo não faz fiscalizações sistemáticas em comunidades terapêuticas e não possui dados consolidados sobre o tratamento que oferecem, é impossível contabilizar o número exato de adolescentes que são conduzidos a esse tipo de tratamento.

No entanto, é possível ter uma dimensão da situação a partir de levantamento do Instituto de Pesquisa Econômica Aplicada, o Ipea, que mostra que uma em cada quatro comunidades terapêuticas acolhem adolescentes no país. Ao menos 470 clínicas deste tipo recebem menores de idade.

59% das comunidades terapêuticas que recebem verba do governo não tiveram nenhum tipo de inspeção nos últimos cinco anos.

Um levantamento feito pelo Intercept via Lei de Acesso à Informação também mostrou que, nos últimos cinco anos, 390 comunidades terapêuticas receberam verbas federais – no total, mais de R$ 250 milhões. Mais da metade delas (59%) não passaram por nenhuma inspeção nesse período.

Desde o governo de Michel Temer, o país tem adotado políticas de drogas baseadas na internação, em detrimento da redução de danos. Esse tipo de abordagem vem depois de um intenso lobby dos donos de clínicas terapêuticas, que têm um ótimo trânsito no Executivo e no Legislativo – Osmar Terra, conhecido defensor da internação compulsória, é Ministro da Cidadania e a frente parlamentar em defesa da saúde mental, que puxa as discussões no Congresso, tem mais de 200 deputados, além de quatro senadores.

Foi o lobby puxado por Osmar Terra, por exemplo, que decidiu engavetar o estudo sobre drogas feito pela Fiocruz, divulgado pelo Intercept em fevereiro. O estudo, o maior do tipo já feito no Brasil, mostrou que não há uma ‘epidemia’ de drogas como alardeia o governo – mas, sim, que o álcool, por exemplo, é um problema muito mais grave. Como o resultado contrariou os interesses do governo, o estudo feito em 2017 está até hoje embargado. O ministro Osmar Terra disse que não “confia” no resultado.

Há pouco mais de duas semanas, os defensores do modelo conseguiram sua primeira grande vitória: a aprovação da nova Lei de Drogas, que transforma as comunidades terapêuticas em protagonistas no atendimento a usuários de drogas, ampliando o financiamento público que recebem. As diretrizes do SUS, até então, indicavam tratamento na Rede de Atenção Psicossocial, a Raps, e internação neste tipo de clínica como um último recurso.

O problema é que essa rede pública nunca foi suficiente. Matheus, por exemplo, nunca teve outras opções além das clínicas privadas antidrogas. A falta de estrutura da vida simples em um bairro isolado, a 36 quilômetros do centro, fez com que o garoto precisasse ‘ser retirado do ambiente para ter algum futuro’, diz a mãe. Ele é considerado ‘o caso difícil’ da cidade, que ninguém sabe muito como lidar. Rosineia gostaria que o filho tivesse a chance de ‘ir para um lugar onde pudesse receber tratamento, mas desenvolver a cabeça, sem parar de estudar, para conseguir aprender uma profissão, um dia”. Enquanto isso não acontece, ele vive em um abrigo público.

É o que tem pra hoje

Matheus deveria ir para uma Unidade de Acolhimento para Adolescentes, residências onde os jovens vivem temporariamente e recebem apoio psicológico, didático e médico. O problema é que, para todo o estado de Minas Gerais, existem só cinco delas. No país, no total, há 2,4 mil Caps – um para cada 100 mil habitantes.

Leitos hospitalares para pacientes psiquiátricos, outra opção de tratamento para situações emergenciais, são ainda mais escassos. Em 2017, o país contava com apenas 236 serviços hospitalares de referência com vagas para saúde mental habilitados. Juntas, essas unidades ofereciam apenas 1.163 leitos. Desses, 73,6% estavam concentrados nas regiões Sul e Sudeste.

Depois que a Cetreq-Centradeq foi interditada, o interno Rômulo, de 55 anos, precisou voltar para casa. Segundo sua esposa, logo que chegou passou duas semanas bebendo pelas ruas. A família, que mora em um pequeno município baiano, está desnorteada. Rômulo, que bebe desde os 12 anos, não quer se tratar. Outra família de ex-interno está em uma situação parecida. Fernanda*, irmã de Pedro*, que estava internado para tratar a dependência do álcool, conta que teve que arranjar às pressas outra internação compulsória para o irmão. “Ele chegou em casa e ficou transtornado. Quebrou o braço do meu pai no fim da primeira semana e, por mais que eu saiba que não foi por mal, não tinha como ele ficar lá”. Ela conseguiu que uma amiga lhe ajudasse a pagar outra clínica.

Nas mais de 20 entrevistas feitas para esta reportagem, frequentemente familiares de usuários apontaram as comunidades terapêuticas como ‘a opção que resta’. Mas não há evidências de que o tratamento que elas oferecem realmente funcione. Embora o governo continue injetando dinheiro nesses espaços, não há números que mostrem que essa verba está, de fato, servindo para a recuperação de dependentes.

Procurada em 2018, a Secretaria Nacional de Política Sobre Drogas, a Senad, pasta responsável pelos repasses financeiros, não apresentou levantamentos que mostrem o sucesso do tratamento oferecido pelas entidades. Entramos em contato com o órgão novamente, mas não tivemos resposta.

Em entrevista, pedimos ao atual secretário de Cuidados e Prevenção ao Uso de Drogas, Quirino Cordeiro Júnior, levantamentos sobre eficácia dos tratamentos contratados pelo órgão federal. O secretário disse que não tinha os dados, pois eles estavam em outra secretaria – a Senad. No entanto, quando procuramos a Senad, começou o empurra-empurra: fomos informadas que esse tipo de informação agora é responsabilidade da secretaria coordenada por Quirino Cordeiro, a Senapred.

A falta de transparência nos dados sobre a eficiência do serviço prestado por Comunidades Terapêuticas não afeta o discurso do governo. Em uma audiência pública em Brasília, na semana passada, Osmar Terra afirmou que a meta agora é contratar 20 mil vagas nessas entidades. Se o objetivo for alcançado, o número de entidades recebendo verbas federais duplicará.

The post A vida dos internos em comunidades terapêuticas é pular de inferno em inferno appeared first on The Intercept.

A Cheat Sheet to the Very Crowded Race to Be Britain’s Next Prime Minister

Theresa May’s decision to stand down as the leader of Britain’s Conservative Party—and, consequently, prime minister—has sparked a leadership battle months in the making. As many as 11 Conservatives have announced their candidacy, and more can be expected to enter the race once it formally begins June 10.

Whoever succeeds May will carry the burden of steering Britain through its seemingly intractable impasse over how, or even if, the country should leave the European Union. This person will have until October 31, the next Brexit deadline, to find a solution that has eluded the country since it voted in 2016 to leave the bloc. The next prime minister will undoubtedly face the same parliamentary deadlock and division as did May.

Before that challenge, though, they will need to win over their Tory colleagues in Parliament, as well as the party membership. In the first phase of the leadership contest, candidates will face the 313 Conservative Members of Parliament, who will whittle the list of contenders down to two. The finalists will then face each other in a run-off decided via postal ballot by the party’s estimated 124,000 dues-paying members. May will stay on as prime minister until a winner is declared, possibly by late July.

Read: Theresa May’s final humiliation

This cheat sheet will be updated as the Tory leadership contest progresses. Here are the candidates:

BORIS JOHNSON

Who is he?

Britain’s gaffe-prone foreign secretary until his resignation last year in protest of May’s Brexit deal. Before that, he was the mayor of London.

Why does he want to run?

He’s ambitious. The 54-year-old, who is said to have aspired to be “world king” as a child, was expected to seek the position in 2016. (May eventually won that race.) But he bowed out when Michael Gove, one of his key allies who is Britain’s environmental secretary, withdrew support so he could launch his own—ultimately unsuccessful—leadership bid instead. Now, Johnson fancies himself the party’s best hope to deliver Brexit by the end of October—with or without a deal with the EU. He called the Conservative Party’s crushing defeat at the European Parliament elections a “final warning” to deliver on Brexit or face being “fired” from running the country.

Who supports him?

More than two dozen Conservative MPs, including arch-Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg and his own brother Jo Johnson. Still, not everyone is ready for Boris. Former Attorney General Dominic Grieve pledged to leave the party if Johnson become leader, citing, among other reasons, the former foreign secretary’s “embarassing” comments comparing Muslim women who wear full-face veils to “letterboxes” and “bank robbers.”  

How did he vote in the 2016 referendum?

Leave: He was one of the most prominent figureheads of the campaign. But he also faces allegations of misconduct over claims he made during the referendum that Britain sends £350 million ($470 million) to Brussels as a member of the EU each week (this figure has since been debunked).

What else do we know?

President Trump considers Johnson, who was born in New York City, “a friend of mine.”

DOMINIC RAAB

Who is he?

The former Brexit Secretary (and the second to resign from his post in protest of May’s Brexit deal).

Why does he want to run?

Raab considers himself the “optimism and change” candidate who will fight for a “fairer” Britain. On Brexit, he has pledged to go back to Brussels and renegotiate May’s Brexit deal (an option the EU has repeatedly rejected). Barring that, the 45-year-old said he would take Britain out of the EU without a deal at the end of October—an outcome few Conservative MPs would support, but one Raab said would be “very difficult” to stop.

Who supports him?

An estimated 22 backers, including David Davis, his predecessor as Brexit secretary.

How did he vote in the 2016 Brexit referendum?

Leave.

What else do we know?

His favorite lunch: A chicken caesar and bacon baguette, a superfruit pot, and a vitamin volcano smoothie.

MICHAEL GOVE

Who is he?

Britain’s environmental secretary. Before that, he served as justice secretary, chief whip, and education secretary.

Why does he want to run?

So he can, as he has put it, bring his fractured party, and the country, back together. Part of his pitch includes delivering on the result of the 2016 referendum, where approximately 52 percent of Britons voted to leave the EU, though the 51-year-old crucially hasn’t advocated for leaving the bloc without a deal. He has also pledged to grant free British citizenship to the 3 million EU nationals who need to apply for a new immigration status to continue living in the U.K. after Brexit.

[Read: Brexit has triggered Britain’s most ambitious migration exercise ever]

Who supports him?

As many as 25 MPs, including Alberto Costa, a leading champion of EU citizens' rights.

How did he vote in the 2016 Brexit referendum?

Leave: He was one of the first politicians to publicly back Brexit. At the time, he called it “the most difficult decision of my political life.”

What else do we know?

It took the former journalist seven tries to pass his driving test, according to his partner and Daily Mail columnist Sarah Vine. She also revealed that he has a fondness for corduroy, a passion for opera, and an “entirely irrational dislike of houseplants.”

JEREMY HUNT

Who is he?

Britain’s foreign secretary. Before that, he served as health secretary and culture secretary.

Why does he want to run?

Hunt is a “born again Brexiteer.” But unlike rivals in the race, the 52-year-old hasn’t gone as far as to advocate leaving the bloc without a deal. Such an outcome, he argued, would be “political suicide” that could spell the end of the Conservative Party. Still, he thinks the option should remain on the table.

Who supports him?

At least 28 Conservative lawmakers have pledged their support, citing Hunt’s Brexit stance and his business background. Others have withdrawn their support over his “political suicide” comments.

How did he vote in the 2016 referendum?

Remain.

What else do we know?

He is fluent in Japanese.

SAJID JAVID

Who is he?

Britain’s home secretary. Before that, he served as local government secretary, business secretary, and culture secretary.

Why does he want to run?

To “first and foremost” deliver Brexit—though Javid backed remain in the 2016 vote. The home secretary, who made the contentious decision to strip citizenship from British nationals who went to join the Islamic State, has also called for strengthening the country’s police force by hiring an additional 20,000 officers.

Who supports him?

He is estimated to have a dozen supporters on the Conservative bench.

How did he vote in the 2016 Brexit referendum?

Remain.

What else do we know?

The former investment banker’s friends call him “The Saj.”

ANDREA LEADSOM

Who is she?

The former leader of the House of Commons and the 36th cabinet minister to resign over May’s Brexit deal. Before that, she served as environmental secretary.

Why does she want to run?

So she can implement her three-point plan to deliver Brexit (no details yet on what that entails).

Leadsom withdrew from the Tory leadership contest in 2016 and paved the way for May’s victory. This time, she says, she will be the “decisive and compassionate” leader who can reunite Britain. Like many of her competitors, the 56-year-old thinks that leaving the EU without a deal should be kept on the table.

Who supports her?

One lawmaker so far.

How did she vote in the 2016 Brexit referendum?

Leave: Leadsome was one of the most visible Brexit advocates during the referendum campaign.

What else do we know?

In 2016, after his own withdrawal, Johnson backed Leadsom in the leadership race.

ESTHER MCVEY

Who is she?

The former work and pensions secretary who also resigned over May’s Brexit deal.

Why does she want to run?

To deliver a no-deal Brexit—unlike virtually every other candidate. Beyond Brexit, the 51-year-old has called for a multi-billion pound cut to Britain’s international aid budget in favor of focusing on domestic priorities such as policing and education.

Who supports her?

So far, half a dozen MPs.

How did she vote in the 2016 Brexit referendum?

Leave.

What else do we know?

Before she was an MP, she was a TV presenter.

MATT HANCOCK

Who is he?

Britain’s health secretary. Before that, he served as culture secretary.

Why does he want to run?

He says he’s a moderate, pro-business candidate who would rebuild the government’s relations with corporate Britain and avoid a no-deal departure from the EU. In a not-so-subtle dig at Johnson, Hancock told the Financial Times that “To the people who say fuck business, I say fuck fuck business.” At the age of 40, he is the youngest contender to succeed May.

Who supports him?

He has nine supporters among his Conservative colleagues.

How did he vote in the 2016 Brexit referendum?

Remain.

What else do we know?

He has his own smartphone app. Oh, and he loves stroopwafels.

RORY STEWART

Who is he?

Britain’s international development secretary.

Why does he want to run?

To unite the country around a compromise Brexit agreement. His solution: to set up a 500-member citizens’ assembly that would have the task of reaching a consensus. If elected, the 46-year-old army veteran, who previously served as a deputy governor in Iraq during the 2003 invasion, has also pledged to double Britain’s foreign spending to focus on climate change.

Who supports him?

Two Conservative MPs, including Winston Churchill’s grandson, Nicholas Soames.

How did he vote in the 2016 Brexit referendum?

Remain.

What else do we know?

He can speak Dari, which he learned while spending three years trekking 6,000 miles across Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran.

[Read: The end of the cult of sympathy for Theresa May]

KIT MALTHOUSE

Who is he?

The minister of state for housing.

Why does he want to run?

Because he is, in his words, a “new face with fresh new ideas.” In his bid to end the Brexit paralysis, the 52-year-old, who is a rising star of the party, said he will revive his eponymous Malthouse compromise—a plan struck by Conservatives on both sides of the Brexit divide to extend the transition period to give Britain more time to prepare for a “managed no-deal” exit. The plan proved unworkable to Brussels and unpopular to British MPs, though Malthouse insists that “with some adjustments, my plan still holds.”

Who supports him?

One lawmaker.

How did he vote in the 2016 Brexit referendum?

Leave.

What else do we know?

Before becoming an MP, Malthouse was a London deputy mayor under Johnson.

JAMES CLEVERLY

Who is he?

The Brexit minister. Before that, he was the deputy chairman of the Conservative Party.

Why does he want to run?

To deliver Brexit “with some form of a deal,” according to an open letter to his constituents. The 49-year-old added that while a no-deal exit is not his preferred choice, “I am ready to lead through what may be difficult and unchartered waters.” He has also called on the EU to “recognize the need for flexibility.”

Who supports him?

No one yet.

How did he vote in the 2016 Brexit referendum?

Leave.

What else do we know?

In a game of “snog, marry, avoid,” the British version of the famous American game, during a 2015 radio interview, Cleverly famously said he would snog Theresa May.

The Fall of a Model Democracy

The recipe is not a good one: a brazen businessman, a contentious election, and a hint of criminality.

Those troubling ingredients were brought to a boil in Benin this month as one of the world’s strongest democracies saw opposition parties barred from running for office, protesters taking to the streets, and an unknown number of arrests and deaths. As demonstrations grew over April’s parliamentary elections, President Patrice Talon also blocked access to the internet and unleashed the police. The story might seem routine in other parts of the developing world, but it’s an anomaly in Benin, which sparked a wave of African democratization in the 1990s and has remained resistant to breakdown and backsliding ever since.

After three decades of peace and progress, the West African nation now finds itself facing the “democratic recession,” a term the political scientist Larry Diamond coined to describe an apparent trend that has taken its toll on every continent. From populist victories in the United States and Britain to far-right parties entrenching themselves in power in Brazil and Hungary, as well as emboldened authoritarians in Turkey and the Philippines, the erosion of the quantity and quality of democracy has become worrying. Now Benin joins the list.

[Read: Tanzania was East Africa’s strongest democracy. Then came “the bulldozer.”]

Distressing though the developments are, the conditions that permitted the present situation are not new. In Benin and beyond, it is important to understand the crisis of democracy in the 21st century, in no small part, as a crisis of expectations from the 20th century.

Benin’s story mirrors many around the world, but its ending is—or seemed to be—much better. Colonized by France at the end of the 19th century and devastated by coups in the middle of the 20th century, Benin’s independence would ultimately be spoiled by a Marxist-Leninist dictatorship that nearly made it to the 21st century. But when communism finally collapsed, a transition to democracy more fruitful than most was born. Soon, free and fair elections, functional institutions, and guarantees of individual liberty became hallmarks of the country.

Until now, Benin has been held in high esteem by the world’s democracy watchers, ranking near the top of several well-regarded indexes on governance, freedom of the press, political participation, and more. On various measures, its democracy has outperformed not only most of Africa, but also most of Asia and Latin America, according to Reporters Without Borders; parts of Europe, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit; and also the United States, according to Freedom House.

All that is now threatened by Talon, the businessman-president, whose alleged ill-gotten gains, apparent bankrolling of favorable politicians, purported plot to poison his predecessor, and rabble-rousing are worrying indications of how much further Benin’s democracy might fall.

The transformation began last August when Benin’s election commission, stacked with Talon’s supporters, made two tweaks to the cost of running and the threshold for winning. Under the new system, parties in the parliamentary elections would have to pay 249 million CFA francs or $402,397 to field candidates—a 1,500 percent increase from the previous amount. In addition, parties would have to secure 10 percent of the total national vote to enter the legislature, forcing local parties to build a national presence. (Previously, parties were elected through proportional representation, leading to dozens of parties in parliament.)

The intention was purportedly noble. “This is the end of strongmen, of political parties constructed around a personality, around a city, or around a region,” Gildas Agonkan, a deputy in the National Assembly, told Jeune Afrique, a leading African magazine, at the time. Or as Claire Adida, a scholar of Benin and an expert on West Africa at the University of California San Diego, told me, the government argued that the changes would reduce the proliferation of registered political parties, of which there are currently more than 200, in order to make politicians come together, enter broader coalitions, and work across ethnic and regional lines. But, she added, “it’s unclear how those reforms would lead to that.”

[Read: The future of Kenya’s democracy is hanging in the balance]

They didn’t. What happened instead was a clearing of the field. Two months before April’s election, Benin’s election commission announced that no opposition party—not even one bloc that makes up more than one-third of the assembly—would be eligible to contest the legislative elections. Only President Talon, Benin’s “Cotton King” who had built a $400 million fortune in agriculture, was able to hop the hurdles he had created, lending his deep pockets, familiarity to voters, and control of the courts to his loyalists seeking election. As the news sunk in and suggested a return to one-party rule, protesters and the police took to the streets.

In the weeks before the election, the unrest grew and the president gave little ground, refusing to delay voting as his predecessor had done amid similar struggles and scrutiny. (There have been troubles in past elections, as well--but the country recovered from those impasses.) When the unopposed election finally arrived on April 28, the situation became more severe as Talon blocked access to Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter, and ultimately the internet.

The nation’s new illiberalism was clear. Voter turnout was reported to reach 23 percent, about one-third of the usual amount. Then the clashes turned fatal as police kidnapped protesters, shot into crowds, and reportedly killed at least seven people.

Now the streets are cleared and life, for some, is back to normal. And as all 83 of the National Assembly’s seats have been filled by the president’s deputies, order—for whatever it’s worth—has been restored too. Democracy, however, has not.

When Larry Diamond, the political scientist at Stanford University, warned the world of the “democratic recession” in his famous 2015 essay, declines such as Benin’s were what he had in mind. He spoke of an “erosion in electoral fairness, political pluralism, and civic space for opposition and dissent.” This has recently become familiar to Benin, with its fixed election, absence of the opposition, and muzzling of the media. The cause, Diamond said, would be “abusive executives intent upon concentrating their personal power.”

[Read: A dangerous immigration crackdown in West Africa]

Although the impulse to tie Benin to a greater global “democratic recession” is fair, much of the hand-wringing fails to acknowledge that democracy has struggled in the past too. This reaction implies that democracy was essentially unblemished until an unexplained unraveling in the past decade.

This has been far from the case. Benin’s democracy was undoubtedly a success like few others, but, as with all democracies, its success was fragile. Its party politics have long been frail and fractured: Three of four presidents since democracy took hold in 1991 were independents, and some 200 parties are in uneasy existence. Corruption and clientelism have long been endemic, as bribes are common and kinship politics is widespread. Moreover, many elections have experienced delays, disruptions, and accusations of irregularities—most notably in 2001, 2011, and 2016—albeit to a lesser degree than in 2019. Bids to entrench presidential authority and extend term limits have existed too.

Around the world, there is an impulse to speak longingly of past triumphs of democracy. This impulse is more emotional than empirical.

In the same issue of the Journal of Democracy that Diamond announced the “democratic recession,” two other academics, Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way, pushed back. The problem was perception, they wrote. “The excessive optimism and voluntarism that pervaded analyses of early post–Cold War transitions generated unrealistic expectations that, when not realized, gave rise to exaggerated pessimism and gloom.” Now, in Benin and beyond, we continue to do what they cautioned against: remember the past with optimism, bemoan the present with pessimism, and ignore the realities in between.

Atomic Veterans Were Silenced for 50 Years. Now, They’re Talking.

Nearly everyone who’s seen it and lived to tell the tale describes it the same way: a horrifying, otherworldly thing of ghastly beauty that has haunted their life ever since.

“The colors were beautiful,” remembers a man in Morgan Knibbe’s short documentary The Atomic Soldiers. “I hate to say that.”

“It was completely daylight at midnight—brighter than the brightest day you ever saw,” says another.

Many tales of the atomic bomb, however, weren’t told at all. In addition to the hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians who died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, an estimated 400,000 American soldiers and sailors also observed nuclear explosions—many just a mile or two from ground zero. From 1946 to 1962, the U.S. government conducted more than 1,000 atmospheric tests, during which unwitting troops were exposed to vast amounts of ionizing radiation. For protection, they wore utility jackets, helmets, and gas masks. They were told to cover their face with their arms.

After the tests, the soldiers, many of whom were traumatized, were sworn to an oath of secrecy. Breaking it even to talk among themselves was considered treason, punishable by a $10,000 fine and 10 or more years in prison.

In Knibbe’s film, some of these atomic veterans break the forced silence to tell their story for the very first time. They describe how the blast knocked them to the ground; how they could see the bones and blood vessels in their hands, like viewing an X-ray. They recount the terror in their officers’ faces and the tears and panic that followed the blasts. They talk about how they’ve been haunted—by nightmares, PTSD, and various health afflictions, including cancer. Knibbe’s spare filmmaking approach foregrounds details and emotion. There’s no need for archival footage; the story is writ large in the faces of the veterans, who struggle to find the right words to express the horror of what they saw during the tests and what they struggled with in the decades after.

Knibbe told me that he has long been fascinated with the self-destructive tendencies of mankind. When he found declassified U.S. civil-defense footage of soldiers maneuvering in the glare of the mushroom cloud of an atomic bomb, he was “absolutely amazed and wanted to learn more about their stories.” His efforts to dig deeper were curtailed by the fact that most of the information about the nuclear tests was classified—including reports on the illnesses the veterans suffered and the radioactive pollution that was released into the environment around the test sites. “I was baffled by the lack of recorded testimonies available,” he said.

Knibbe began trying to contact veterans through the National Association of Atomic Veterans, eventually traveling across the United States to meet them and hear their stories. He was stunned and saddened by what he learned. “They were confronted by such an incredible destructive power that they were immediately shocked into an existential crisis,” Knibbe said. “It was like they saw the creation of the universe. They were confronted with an enemy they could never defeat. It was something really difficult for them to describe.”

What appalled Knibbe the most was how the U.S. government failed the veterans. “Until this day, a lot of what has happened—and the radiation-related diseases the veterans have contracted and passed on to the generations after them—is still being covered up,” Knibbe said. “The veterans are consistently denied compensation.”

“For 10 years now, I’ve been trying to get compensation, but the government does not want to admit that anybody was harmed by any radiation,” says one man in the film. Knibbe said he has spoken with more than 100 U.S. atomic veterans, all of whom share similar stories of the government’s intransigence. One of the few studies conducted on atomic veterans found that the 3,000 participants in a 1957 nuclear test suffered from leukemia at more than twice the rate of their peers.

Bill Clinton relieved the veterans’ oath of secrecy in 1994, but the announcement was eclipsed by news from the O. J. Simpson trial. “Most of the atomic veterans didn’t even know the oath of secrecy was lifted,” Knibbe said. Most went on to believe that they were not allowed to talk about their experiences, even to seek help for their health problems. Many took the secret to their grave.

“It haunts me to think of what I had witnessed,” says a man in the film, “and not realized at the time the import of what we were doing … serving as guinea pigs.”

As Israel Basks in the Glow of Eurovision, Anti-Occupation Activists Show Tourists the West Bank

At the annual international pop music contest, held recently in Tel Aviv, revelers party on the beach and activists bring busloads of tourists to catch a glimpse of life under occupation.

The post As Israel Basks in the Glow of Eurovision, Anti-Occupation Activists Show Tourists the West Bank appeared first on The Intercept.

One Night, Two Executions, and More Questions About Torture

As the sun began to set over the prayer vigil outside Tennessee’s Riverbend Maximum Security Institution, where 68-year-old Don Johnson was about to die, another execution was underway some 400 miles south of Nashville. “I would like to thank Jesus for everything he’s done for me,” Michael Brandon Samra said as he lay on the gurney in Atmore, Alabama. “I want to thank Jesus for shedding his blood for my sins. Thank you for your grace, Jesus. Amen.”

Samra was strapped down and wrapped in a tight white blanket covering his feet. His execution had been scheduled for 6 p.m. on May 16, but for reasons no one explained, it did not start for more than an hour. “At 7:15 p.m.,” a media witness later wrote for the Montgomery Advertiser, “his chest heaved three times in quick succession. After, his breathing appeared significantly labored, with his head slightly jerking with each breath for the next minute.” A consciousness check was conducted at 7:17 p.m.; Samra did not appear to respond. But around 7:19 p.m., another reporter observed, “he stretched both hands and slightly raised his left arm, then curled his fingers and dropped his arm.” Eventually he went still, and the curtain closed. Samra was declared dead at 7:33 p.m.

Michael Brandon Samra.

Photo: Alabama Department of Corrections via AP

Samra, who was sent to death row for his role in a 1997 quadruple murder, was executed using the same lethal injection protocol used in Tennessee: a 500-milligram dose of midazolam, meant to provide anesthesia, followed by a paralytic that stops respiration, and then potassium chloride to stop the heart. For years defense attorneys and medical experts have warned that midazolam — a sedative often paired with an opioid during minor surgeries — is incapable of rendering a person insensate for the purpose of lethal injection, no matter how high the dose. Without sufficient anesthesia, the second and third drugs are known to be excruciating, creating a sense of suffocation and burning that has been labeled torture.

One sign that anesthesia has not been properly administered is unusual movement on the gurney — a phenomenon as old as lethal injection itself. But in recent years, autopsies of people executed using midazolam have shown additional red flags: heavy lungs filled with bloody, frothy fluid, a sign of pulmonary edema. This evidence was first presented at a trial in Nashville last summer, in which lawyers with the Tennessee Federal Public Defender unsuccessfully challenged the state’s protocol as cruel and unusual punishment. One veteran pharmacologist, responsible for early clinical trials of midazolam, testified that a 500-miligram dose of the acidic drug would rapidly destroy pulmonary capillaries and lung tissues upon injection, allowing liquid to fill the lungs and resulting in a sense of terror and drowning.

Despite losing in court, the lawyers’ argument has been bolstered since then. Eyewitness accounts of Billy Ray Irick’s execution at Riverbend in August 2018 led a medical expert to conclude that he had died a tortuous death. Although a court blocked an autopsy from being conducted on Irick due to his religious beliefs, an autopsy of an Ohio man executed using midazolam that same summer revealed “significant abnormalities” in the lungs of the deceased, including a mix of blood and frothy fluid. The mounting evidence against midazolam was so alarming that Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine put executions on hold and called for a new protocol.

Nevertheless, Tennessee and Alabama have forged ahead. As Samra took his last breaths inside the Atmore death chamber last week, those standing in the field in Nashville checked their phones, seeking word about Johnson. “Is he gone?” one woman whispered tearfully as she joined the vigil around 7:30 p.m. “We don’t know,” her friend answered. Many people there that evening had known Johnson for years, describing him as a deeply devout man who had transformed into a spiritual leader on death row. While it remained mostly unspoken, the knowledge that he could suffer loomed heavily.

Ohio-based activist Abe Bonowitz of Death Penalty Action had spent the last few days alongside local organizers and faith leaders, including Jeannie Alexander, the former chaplain at Riverbend. They urged Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee to show mercy, stressing Johnson’s positive influence on death row and his relationship with his stepdaughter, Cynthia Vaughn. Johnson had been convicted of killing Vaughn’s mother. Despite years supporting his sentence, she had since forgiven him and pleaded for his life. After Lee announced he would not intervene, activists met at Nashville’s Legislative Plaza. In single file, they crossed the street to the Tennessee state Capitol, carrying a large poster featuring Don Johnson’s face and below it a quote from the Bible: “I was in prison and you visited me.” The hope was that Lee, who ran on a platform of criminal justice reform and Christian values, might consider meeting and praying with Johnson. But the group was turned away from his office without a response.

Bonowitz was addressing the crowd in the field when the word came from the prison that the execution was complete. He paused, and Alexander announced: “Don was declared dead at 7:37 p.m.” Soon afterward, media witnesses approached a podium in a nearby parking lot. One after another, they shared what they had seen and heard in the execution chamber. After the drugs began to flow, Johnson sang hymns, eventually falling unconscious. But his breathing appeared labored; different witnesses described it as “snoring” or “slurping” or “gasping.” After a consciousness check — and a signal that the execution could continue — Johnson emitted a sharp “sort of high-pitched ‘ah’ noise,” as one reporter put it. Another “counted 33 of whatever that was — a snoring, or a gurgle or a gasp” before the consciousness check, and 28 afterwards. It was starkly different from executions she had witnessed many years ago, using a previous protocol, and which had been carried out without obvious signs of movement by the condemned. “There was quite a bit of noise coming from Don Johnson lasting for quite a bit of time,” she said.

When Federal Public Defender Kelley Henry approached the microphone, she was firm: the midazolam had failed to provide anesthesia, just as expected. While heavy straps kept Johnson tied to the gurney — and his hands were bound with what appeared to be athletic tape — “I believe that he felt the sensation of being buried alive from the paralytic,” she said. “And I believe that he felt the sensation of liquid fire from the potassium chloride.” The gurgling and gasping was the sound of her client experiencing pulmonary edema, she said. But it would take an autopsy to be more certain.

The Machinery of Death

On the morning after the executions in Tennessee and Alabama, the Montgomery-based Equal Justice Initiative raised alarm over Samra’s death on its website, describing it as “the latest in a series of problematic attempts to execute people by lethal injection.” Among the other examples it listed was the 2017 execution of Kenneth Williams in Arkansas, who “violently lurched forward about three minutes after drugs were injected and continued to convulse about 20 times.”

Samra’s movement on the gurney was mild compared to what occurred during executions like Williams’s. But that did not mean all had gone smoothly. As anesthesiologist David Lubarsky wrote following the Irick execution, “a trained observer knows that if a patient moves his fingers or hands, that is a clear indicator that they are not anesthetized.” Curling of the fingers, as seen in Samra’s case, was just the kind of red flag Tennessee seemed intent on concealing.

But even if Samra’s death had been more dramatic, there is no reason to think the state would have acknowledged it. In Alabama and other states, the routine response to seemingly botched executions has been blunt denial. I was in the press room at the Arkansas prison where Williams was killed in 2017, the last of four executions carried out in a rush before the state’s stash of midazolam expired. No sooner had the media witnesses described what appeared to be lurching, gasping, and striving for breath than a governments spokesperson announced that, in fact, all had gone perfectly well.

The state maintained the same stance at a recent federal trial over Arkansas’ lethal injection protocol, in which experts gave dueling testimony over what exactly Williams could or could not feel before he died. Eyewitnesses to his execution and others carried out with midazolam took the stand to describe what they saw that night. Such accounts are “critically important,” as anesthesiologist Joel Zivot has told me. “The problem, of course, is that executions in America are curated events, and so the witness doesn’t really get to see what’s really happening.”

Indeed, among the critical pieces of context that are withheld from witnesses is any information about when exactly the state is administering the different drugs, making it almost impossible for witnesses to gauge what is occurring. “The state reports in great detail about the amount of pepper on the fried chicken on the last meal,” Zivot says wryly. But “as soon as you get into the execution part, the state record turns into something akin to an impressionist painting. Brushstrokes from a distance.”

The result is an incomplete record, he says. “So what remains? Certainly the executed person can’t comment. The witnesses can’t tell. And so, we have to look to the body itself. And here the autopsy reveals, I think unambiguously, the truth of lethal injection.” In the case of Williams, there was evidence of blood-tinged fluid in his respiratory passages, as noted by pathologist Mark Edgar, who has studied all the available autopsies of people executed with midazolam. He concluded that Williams “developed acute pulmonary edema during his execution, which is further supported by the eyewitness accounts.”

Don Johnson at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville, Tenn., in February 2019.

Photo: Courtesy of Federal Public Defender Kelley Henry

On the morning of May 17, the Davidson County Medical Examiner conducted Johnson’s autopsy. Although the findings have yet to be released, there is good reason to expect it will show signs of pulmonary edema, as a majority of available autopsies of people executed using midazolam have to date. If it does, the impact on the future of Tennessee’s death penalty remains uncertain. With its next execution scheduled for August 15, Tennessee abolitionists are still reeling from Johnson’s death. As Steven Hale wrote in the Nashville Scene last week: “There is always a persistent hope among the men and women who have spent years and even decades opposing state killings. … But the distraught looks on their faces signaled something grim.”

After four executions in less than one year, it was the sinking feeling that there is nothing capable of stopping the machinery of death in Tennessee — never mind the myriad factors that might call for mercy. Hale continued: “Would they stop it for the mentally ill? Would they call it off for the rehabilitated? Are they moved by the undeniably arbitrary nature of death sentences, or a history of horrific childhood abuse? Will the prospect of torture give them pause? Will a story of redemption and forgiveness compel a man whose political identity is built on the sincerity of his Christian faith?” The answer to all these questions was no.

In Alabama, there is perhaps even less of a reason to think the questions about Samra’s execution will give the state pause. The next lethal injection in Atmore is scheduled for May 30.

The post One Night, Two Executions, and More Questions About Torture appeared first on The Intercept.

Berlin Has Become an Unlikely Home for China’s Expat Artists

BERLIN—We were packed, about 50 of us, a collection of Germans, Chinese, even a prim-looking, older university lecturer, into a converted storefront in a working-class neighborhood of northwest Berlin. I glanced nervously out the giant street-level windows at the people walking by, concerned that some passing child might peek in and see what was projected on the wall.

On-screen, two women were having sex with gusto. Titled The Hutong Vibe, the short film is regarded as the first feminist queer porn made in China—lesbian sex not produced and marketed for heterosexual men, but an art-house project made for lesbians. Made by Fan Popo, a 34-year-old Chinese LGBTQ activist, it was part of a series of short films he curated.

The film also had added significance: Fan could not have shown it publicly back home. In fact, none of the films in the series will be available in China anytime soon. Fan titled the evening “F*ck the Censorship: Welcome to China, Where Censorship Is Happening All the Time, but Meanwhile People Are Still Doing Naughty Stuff,” an intentionally unwieldy headline, a lexical bludgeon against Beijing’s restrictions.

LGBTQ activist Fan Popo could not have shown his film back home in China. (Courtesy of Marvin Girbig)

Since taking power in 2012, Chinese President Xi Jinping has tightened the Communist Party’s grip on all aspects of life and society, including the arts. He believes that art should serve a nationalist purpose, that nudity is bad, and that contemporary art and architecture are “weird.” Under his leadership, the censorship-review process all creatives must submit their works to, whether for an art exhibition or a film’s release, has become even more conservative and unpredictable. That has not just had a chilling effect on the country’s artistic community, but has encouraged many to pursue their passion overseas—Fan among them.

Since moving here almost two years ago, Fan has been prolific, writing three scripts, directing two projects, and sitting on the jury for the queer-film prize at the Berlin Film Festival. He’s far from alone, though. I moved here at about the same time as Fan and have come across an array of Chinese artists and writers, performers and filmmakers—all up to no good by the standards of Beijing’s morality police, hungrily taking in the many crazy, dissolute subcultures Berlin has to offer. The city’s affordable housing, the country’s special visa for freelancers and artists, and German-government support for a few of China’s best-known creatives have meant that some of the most interesting developments in modern Chinese culture are happening as much in Berlin as in Beijing.

[Read: How internet censorship is curbing innovation in China]

The artist and activist Ai Weiwei decamped here in 2015, taking his studio—and many of his bright, young Chinese staff—with him. The writer Chun Sue, who once wowed and shocked China with her rebel youth novel, lives here now too. Badiucao, a political cartoonist and activist, also spent time in Berlin. They remind me of earlier generations of immigrant intellectuals, Americans in Paris or European Jews in New York City.

Something similar happened, albeit under different circumstances, in the 1980s following the death of Mao Zedong and the country’s political liberalization. China then permitted a small group of creatives to head overseas. That generation ended up playing a huge role in determining what Chinese contemporary art and culture would look like, both at home and abroad. As their country grew freer, many returned. Now, as its sociopolitical space contracts once again, another wave of creatives is leaving, set to reshape Chinese arts anew.

During my years in Beijing—I was Al Jazeera’s China correspondent from 2007 to 2012—the creative scene exploded, with an exhilarating exchange of ideas between Chinese and foreigners. I fondly recall dinner parties hosted by two foreign correspondents that became, unintentionally and quite organically, something of a regular salon, and the Chinese who showed up, intellectuals and artists among them, were often people who didn’t seem to quite fit into mainstream society there. At the time, I wondered to what extent I was witnessing the kind of snapshot one would recall decades later, once people had achieved fame, and then I could say: “I was there!”

Beijing remains vibrant, of course, but a place such as Berlin not only promises freedom, but actually wants and invites people to provoke and challenge orthodoxy. Some of the excitement I witnessed in Beijing has now been transported here.

A diverse crowd including Germans and Chinese attend Fan Popo’s film night. (Courtesy of Marvin Girbig)

The screening of The Hutong Vibe was part of a double bill alongside Block and Censor, a movie about Fan, who once sued China’s media regulator for yanking another one of his works, a documentary about LGBTQ children and their parents, off the internet. The film, produced by his best friend, the 29-year-old filmmaker Mo Sun, charts Fan’s legal battle to get the documentary shown in his own country, and his early naïveté about just how far he could push the limits. The other films in the series all deal with queer Chinese identity, free expression, and displacement.

[Read: China’s surveillance state should scare everyone]

“Maybe you can’t show these films in China right at this moment,” Sun told me. “But that doesn’t mean it might not be shown in the future.” It was important, Sun said, to make and showcase these films “for the record.”

Fan and Sun first met at the Beijing LGBT Center, a small nonprofit working on rights and health education. Both were from working-class families elsewhere in China; Beijing was where they came out and where they found many others like them. The studio Sun worked for offered to transfer him to Berlin the same week Fan received a German fellowship. The pair of friends never seriously considered other cultural hubs such as New York or Paris—they were too expensive. The timing was serendipitous; both were sent to Germany at the same time. To some extent, some artists such as Fan and Sun will inevitably move abroad. Still, considerations of their country’s narrowing creative space played a role.

“If you’re a young artist,” says Angie Baecker, a former Beijing-based art critic who is now studying for a doctorate in Chinese culture at the University of Michigan, “your choice is: Do I work with this system in China, or do I find spaces outside of it?”

Xiaoer Liu, 25, is another example. Since moving here three years ago, she’s done everything from wrapping herself up like a mummy in Scotch tape—a literal performance of the restrictions imposed on women—to cubist paintings that she tears to shreds. “I can’t say that the stuff I create here is better than the stuff I create in China,” she told me. But “Chinese society isn’t free right now.”

Berlin has long been something of a hub for artists of all nationalities, not just Chinese, living up to what its former mayor, Klaus Wowereit, once billed as its “poor but sexy” reputation. Though residents complain about the rising cost of living, the German capital is still far cheaper than other major cities, even those in China. At the same time, the German government, a steadfast supporter of human rights and freedom of expression, has played an instrumental role in bringing some of the best-known Chinese over.

Ai Weiwei chose the city in part because of the country’s commitment to his cause: German diplomats frequently checked on him during his years of house arrest and harassment in Beijing, and pressured for his release. When he finally got his passport back, Ai bailed for Berlin. The writer and poet Liao Yiwu moved here after fleeing China and trekking across the border into Vietnam. Most recently, there is Liu Xia. Chancellor Angela Merkel herself pushed for the release of Liu, the wife of the deceased writer and Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo. When freed, Liu headed to Berlin, and while she has opted for a quieter life than some of her compatriots here, an exhibition of her photography opened this month in Germany. After years of house arrest, and frequently in the shadow of her more famous husband, Liu’s has finally resumed her professional life as an artist.

[Read: Why young Chinese artists are avoiding political art]

Decades separate these older exiles from the young Chinese creatives running around town, some of whom might not even relate to the strong dissident identities of Ai, Liao, and Liu—though they certainly know what the Chinese state thinks of them. All these Chinese artists also don’t congregate in the same deliberate manner that Gertrude Stein and others did in Paris in the early 20th century—yet. Shen Han, a visual artist, began hosting events, from dinner parties to studio visits, when he noticed more Chinese like him arriving in Berlin, and built a network that culminated recently in an exhibition composed of works by Chinese living in Europe, titled Yellow Reflection.

As the creative condition worsens in China, artists like Fan have continued to find ways to work, undeterred. Like the Chinese creatives of the 1980s and wanderers in Europe of the 1920s, he and others have found the right place to express themselves, here in Berlin. Still, Fan plans to return home at some point.

“Do we give up? Of course not,” he told me. “Young Chinese want to be the change, even if the political environment is tough. I still have hope.”

Even if he does, veterans such as Ai worry about the negative impact on Chinese culture when the country’s artists are forced abroad, for seemingly indefinite periods of quasi-exile.

“If someone like me faces this kind of dramatic situation, think about the young artist,” Ai told me. He worried that China might lose something greater than just individual films, photographs, or exhibitions. Was it, he wondered, set to “lose a whole generation’s imagination, courage, and their passion for art.”

Diário de um refugiado: ‘trabalho 14h no Uber para tirar minha família da Síria’

Conheci Houssam Nour em uma viagem de Uber. Logo que entrei no carro, identifiquei que ele era imigrante ao ler uma mensagem colada no painel do veículo pedindo ajuda para trazer os seus pais da Síria para o Brasil. O trajeto até o meu destino não era tão longo, mas foi suficiente para marcarmos uma entrevista. Eu queria entender como um sírio, formado em engenharia civil, havia se tornado um motorista no Mato Grosso do Sul.

De acordo com a ONU, 5,6 milhões de sírios estão refugiados. Houssam é um deles. O engenheiro vive no Brasil desde 2015 e batalha desde então para trazer o resto da família para cá, longe da guerra que já dura oito anos. Ele me contou sua caminhada.

Placa exibida no carro de Houssam Nour.

Foto: Arquivo pessoal

Quando a guerra começou em 2011, eu queria sair da Síria, mas também queria muito o meu diploma. Eu comecei a faculdade em 2009, estudava em Damasco, capital do país. Cursei engenharia civil em meio aos muitos bombardeios. Ser engenheiro civil era o meu sonho. Batalhei muito por isso. Seguir em frente teve um custo alto: tinha dias que eu estava em sala de aula, em outros eu ajudava feridos e carregava corpos.

Teve uma vez que uma bomba caiu em um restaurante dentro da faculdade de arquitetura, morreram muitos colegas que estavam tomando café. Foi horrível, as pessoas sagravam, corriam, eu tentava ajudar. Às vezes, só depois que as coisas acalmavam, eu me dava conta que estava todo sujo de sangue. Apesar de tudo, eu era o 9º melhor aluno entre os 600 matriculados na Damascus University.

Apesar da guerra, consegui me formar em 2014. No mesmo ano, me casei e minha esposa engravidou. Ela se chama Dima Mely, se formou em arquitetura seis meses antes de mim. Fizemos algumas economias com a pretensão de partir para os Estados Unidos, Europa, Austrália, para qualquer país desenvolvido que nos desse condições de viver bem, mas todos eles fecharam as portas para nós. A gente tinha a possibilidade de pegar um barco como muitos refugiados ainda fazem e cruzar o mar a fim de chegar em algum país europeu, mas eu não queria isso. Era muito arriscado. E eu só conseguia pensar em uma prima de 37 anos e suas filhas de 8 e 10 anos que morreram em uma dessas travessias.

A notícia de que o Brasil estava recebendo bem refugiados sírios já havia se espalhado. Eu e minha família sempre gostamos do futebol brasileiro, mas não tínhamos ideia de como seria a vida por aqui. Resolvi tentar e deu certo. Desembarcamos em São Paulo, em maio de 2015, e ficamos lá cerca de cinco meses. Alugamos uma casa na Mooca. Achei que chegaria e encontraria emprego, mas não foi assim. O dinheiro que juntamos na Síria dando aulas particulares de inglês e matemática durou cerca de um semestre.

As coisas começaram a ficar difíceis e se complicaram ainda mais com o nascimento da Salma, minha filha. Foi quando um sírio que mora em Campo Grande, Mato Grosso do Sul, chamou Dima e eu para cá. Ele conseguiu um lugar onde ficamos um ano sem precisar pagar aluguel. Nesse período, consegui um trabalho de auxiliar de engenharia, e o salário era dividido entre nós e nossos familiares na Síria. Fiquei neste trabalho por quase dois anos.

Houssam Nour, sua esposa, Dima Mely, e sua filha, Salma.

Foto: Arquivo pessoal

Um passo arriscado

Na ânsia de ajudar o restante da minha família a sair de lá tomei uma decisão arriscada: pedi para a empresa me demitir. Com o dinheiro da rescisão, achei que conseguiria abrir um restaurante e, com isso, conseguiria trazer meus pais e irmãos para o Brasil para trabalhar comigo. A guerra te obriga a ser radical, porque estar nela é sempre um risco de vida ou morte. Infelizmente, a ideia não deu certo. O valor da rescisão não era o suficiente e não consegui aprovação de crédito no banco. Além disso, eu também precisava de um fiador ou sócio, e as pessoas que conversei não se dispuseram a fazer o negócio comigo.

Eu tinha uma boa vida na Síria, cheia de sonhos. Hoje em dia só quero trazer minha família pra cá e ficar bem.

Atualmente, minha esposa ganha meio salário mínimo trabalhando 5h por dia em um escritório de arquitetura. Eu trabalho cerca de 14h por dia como motorista da Uber, com o carro que financei quando estava na empresa e que ainda estou pagando as parcelas. Dima está feliz no escritório, porque está tendo a possibilidade de aprender a usar ferramentas de trabalho que ela ainda não conhecia. Eu não vejo a hora de conseguir algo onde eu possa exercer minha profissão de verdade. Infelizmente, por hora, tanto eu quanto ela tivemos que abandonar esse sonho, por falta de recursos para validar nossos diplomas.

Houssam Nour e sua mãe.

Foto: Arquivo pessoal

Eu tinha uma boa vida na Síria, cheia de sonhos. Hoje em dia, só quero trazer minha família pra cá e ficar bem. Nossa moeda está tão desvalorizada, e a crise é tamanha, que meu pai, que deveria ter uma boa aposentadoria, ganha o equivalente a R$ 300 por mês. Isso, hoje em dia, compra 4 a 5 quilos de carne nos mercados do país. Além disso, minha irmã e meu irmão tiveram que desistir da faculdade. Ela fazia farmácia, e ele estava decidindo entre odontologia ou medicina – lá os cursos são unificados, em determinado período os alunos escolhem o que querem fazer. Esse é o futuro deles, e a guerra está roubando isso.

Todos ignoram que, por causa das sanções impostas ao meu país, as pessoas estão morrendo de fome e frio.

A impotência é um sentimento que machuca. Queria poder fazer mais, mas o que posso fazer agora é dirigir. Levo muitas pessoas aos seus destinos. Pensei que elas poderiam me ajudar com a viagem da minha família. Escrevi em uma folha de caderno: “Com R$ 1 a mais você me ajuda a trazer meus pais da Síria”, e colei no painel do meu carro. Pode parecer loucura, mas a cada passageiro que ajuda, me aproximo do objetivo de viver bem com eles no Brasil. A ideia é trazer primeiro o meu pai. Para isso, preciso juntar cerca de R$ 6,5 mil. Combinamos de trabalhar juntos, eu e ele, para reunir todo mundo.

Houssam Nour e seu pai, ainda na Síria.

Foto: Arquivo pessoal

O lugar das minhas lembranças

Minha mãe sempre trabalhou em casa, e meu pai é professor de geografia aposentado. Ele sempre se esforçou para termos uma vida tranquila. No dia em que ele me ligou pra dizer que venderia a nossa casa para ter dinheiro para comprar comida, foi um golpe pra mim. Insisti para que ele não fizesse isso, mas fui incapaz de impedi-lo. As pessoas falam da guerra hoje em dia, os jornais noticiam, mas todos ignoram que por causa das sanções impostas ao meu país, pessoas estão morrendo de fome e frio.

A guerra te obrigada a escolher entre o seu lar ou a comida de amanhã.

É difícil falar dessa casa. Eu cresci ali, me emociono só de lembrar. Era um lugar lindo, espaçoso. Meu pai trabalhou um ano em Dubai para poder comprá-la. A gente construiu cada detalhe dela. Tinha um jardim bonito, com cerejeiras, videiras, oliveiras, e tantas outras coisas que plantamos. Não era uma casa luxuosa, mas tínhamos tudo o que precisávamos. Toda casa árabe tem um lugar chamado Madafa, a nossa sala de estar. É ali que recebemos os visitantes. Era o lugar que eu mais gostava de ficar. A sala tinha cortinas verdes – escolhemos essa cor porque as janelas davam para o jardim. Era como um convite pra você ficar à vontade. Sempre dávamos um jeito de deixar aquele lugar cheio de gente. A felicidade era palpável.

Houssam Nour e sua esposa, Dima Mely, no jardim da casa dos pais dele, na Síria.

Foto: Arquivo pessoal

Agora meus pais vivem de aluguel na casa de um tio, temporariamente. Ainda não tem uma data de saída definida, mas o lugar também será vendido. Afinal, meu tio também precisa buscar um meio de viver na loucura que está a Síria. É triste, porque os valores são sempre muito abaixo do que valem os imóveis. Mas a guerra te obrigada a escolher entre o seu lar ou a comida de amanhã. Nessas horas, por mais que ter uma casa seja um sonho realizado, você negocia.

Dima e eu amamos nosso país, quem dera pudéssemos voltar. Queria tanto que a Salma conhecesse o jardim que agora mora em minhas lembranças. Espero conseguir mostrar pra ela o valor de uma sala de estar cheia de amigos e familiares. Neste dia, quero que ela olhe para esse cômodo especial da casa e escolha entre o colo de seus pais, avós ou tios, enquanto mastiga alguma comida disponível na mesa.

The post Diário de um refugiado: ‘trabalho 14h no Uber para tirar minha família da Síria’ appeared first on The Intercept.

Even in Parts of England That Rely on the EU, European Elections Are a Circus

BATH, England—In the run-up to the 2016 referendum on whether Britain should remain in the European Union, people living in England’s South West had more at stake than most. Even though their region benefits from significant EU funds for development, many of them were pro-Brexit. Three years on, as the country votes in elections for the European Parliament, the EU’s legislative chamber, little has changed.

In some ways, this area serves as a microcosm for the way Brexit has been approached across Britain. The focus has been on colorful figures and their hyperbolic rhetoric rather than the mechanism by which Britain will exit the EU, or indeed what the costs and benefits will be.

The South West conjures picture-postcard images—its sandy beaches and bucolic countryside make it a playground for well-heeled vacationers. The reality can be different. Particularly at its extremities, the region contains pockets of serious poverty. Public services are sometimes inadequate. Many people feel isolated and overlooked by the national government in London.

Since 2014, the South West has received more of the EU’s “structural funds,” money earmarked for poorer regions neglected by their home governments, than any other part of England. The funds have improved roads and rail lines in the area, allowed colleges and businesses to expand, and in some places, made the internet faster. After Brexit, it is unclear how the region will make up for this funding shortfall.

[Read: Britons can’t help but make the European elections all about Brexit]

I was born and raised in Plymouth, a moderately big city deep in the South West that has received sizable European investment. During the 2016 Brexit referendum, I was the area organizer on the campaign to keep Britain in Europe. The local financial benefits of membership were a key reason I signed on, and I often tried to steer my conversations with voters toward the issue. Most people I spoke with, however, preferred to discuss (or vent about) national themes, such as immigration, national sovereignty, and the economy. Pundits, who mostly expected the national vote to go the other way, often ignored parts of the country such as the South West ahead of the referendum. In the end, 51.9 percent of British voters opted to leave the EU. In the South West region, that figure was higher. In Plymouth, it was nearly 60 percent.

Unlike in 2016, the South West has attracted national attention ahead of these European Parliament elections. It has done so, however, as a theater for party-political melodrama, not for what’s likely to happen to the region once Brexit happens and EU investment goes away.

A zany roster of high-profile candidates is running in the region. Rachel Johnson, the pro-Europe sister of Boris Johnson, is one of them. Another is Carl Benjamin, a YouTuber known as “Sargon of Akkad” whose comment that he “wouldn’t even rape” a female lawmaker sparked national outrage. Other candidates include Andrew Adonis, a Labour member of the House of Lords whose incessant advocacy for a second Brexit vote was likened to the bubonic plague by a BBC anchor, and Ann Widdecombe, a former Conservative heavyweight now standing for the Brexit Party, a new hard-line anti-Europe group. These days, Widdecombe is better known as a reality-TV star following turns on the British versions of Dancing With the Stars and Celebrity Big Brother. Another competitor on the latter show? Rachel Johnson.

Last week, I attended rallies for Benjamin and Johnson. Benjamin, who is running for the pro-Brexit UK Independence Party, stood on a makeshift sidewalk stage in Exeter, a liberal college town, and goaded protesters to debate with him, mostly on non-Brexit topics such as political correctness and feminism. At one point, a protester threw a milkshake at Milo Yiannopoulos, who had turned up to support him. Johnson’s event, in Bath, another liberal town, was much slicker; she’s running for Change UK, a new pro-Europe party formed by centrist political insiders who left the Conservative and Labour parties over their ambivalent Brexit policies. At neither event, however, did I hear much talk of South West–specific issues related to Brexit.

[Read: The far right wants to gut the EU, not kill it]

The race, in short, has become something of a circus. “I welcome anything that brings attention to our region,” Clare Moody, who currently represents the South West as a Labour member of the European Parliament, told me. “The problem I have about it is that it means the media are again reporting on personalities, and not on substance, and not on our region.”

Moody is one of only three South West MEPs elected in 2014 to be standing for reelection. Three others not only aren’t running again, but are no longer members of the parties they were elected to represent. One of them, Julie Girling, a vocal pro-European, was suspended by the Conservatives for defying the party line on Brexit. She was later expelled. (MEPs are elected through a system of proportional representation, meaning each constituency has more than one representative.)

Girling told me she feels that the celebrity-laden race in the South West trivializes the work MEPs do on behalf of the region. She doubts that any of the high-profile candidates would put in the necessary hard work if elected, though of all of them, she thinks only Widdecombe is likely to win. “The idea of having her as my MEP makes my skin crawl,” Girling said. “She’ll just make us more of a laughing stock as she struts about.”

This week’s elections are likely to be dominated by the state of Brexit nationally, partly because the issues that loomed over the first Brexit vote, including immigration and sovereignty, remain relevant for most voters. These elections weren’t supposed to happen at all—we were supposed to have Brexited by now—but politicians failed to agree on exit terms in time, and so the vote must go ahead. (Although, as Yasmeen Serhan wrote in The Atlantic, no one knows how long newly elected British MEPs will take their seats. It could be weeks, months, years—or possibly not at all.) Unsurprisingly, it’s shaping up to be a proxy battle over Brexit itself. Voters will put their cross next to their preferred party’s list of candidates. The implicit, underlying question, however, is whether we should cut a deal with Europe, leave without one, or call the whole thing off.

The national focus is understandable. But it speaks to a key, ongoing flaw in Britain’s drawn-out efforts to leave the EU: Three years later, the discussion is dominated by personalities, party factionalism, and—this past week—the ethics of throwing milkshakes at right-wing politicians, rather than the potential impact of Brexit.

[Read: Why protesters keep hurling milkshakes at British politicians]

The European Parliament might lack the power of other branches of the EU apparatus, but its MEPs nonetheless have important input on key issues facing Britain. In the South West, its oversight of the farming and fishing industries is particularly central. In 2016, many in these sectors supported leaving the EU, citing excessive bureaucracy. Moody and Girling acknowledged problems with European regulation mechanisms in these areas. Nonetheless, they said, the EU is working to help both sectors, and remains an important market for the export of South West meat and fish.

For some here, the EU funding remains the most important issue. The South West’s disproportionately high share of that funding is due, in no small part, to Cornwall, on England’s southernmost tip. Cornwall is the poorest area in the South West and the only English region currently classified as economically “less developed” by European policy makers. (Parts of Wales also fit that bracket.) Nonetheless, in the 2016 referendum, 56.5 percent of Cornwall voters chose Brexit.

The British government has said it will replace the regional funding lost to Brexit, but so far it hasn’t outlined many specifics. In fact, earlier this year, when the government announced a new regional development fund, the South West got the second-lowest allocation among the eight regions listed.

Girling told me she frequently asked the British government for more details on South West funding after Brexit. “I gave up because it wasn’t getting anywhere. All you get told is bland assurances: ‘Don’t worry, it’ll be fine,’” she said. Parts of the country that currently rely on European money, she added, are “just going to suffer. It’s as simple as that.”