MISSION
BRAZIL
JUSTICE NET
(known also in Portuguese as SEJUP--Servico Brasileiro de Justica e
Paz) was founded in 1991 and specializes in preparing news and reports
in English about Brazilian human rights and social issues.
Among the issues we cover are agrarian reform, indigenous issues,
environment, the churches, women's issues, violence, racism, children,
grassroots movements. We hope to serve as a bridge between
Brazilian grassroots organizations who use Portuguese as a working
language and groups and individuals in other parts of the world
interested in the news, concerns and views of such Brazilian
organizations. Solidarity building is
also high on our agenda. It has been our experience on numerous
occasions that protest messages from the international
community to Brazilian authorities have done much to resolve human
rights abuses in Brazil. Simple messages of support have been
of extreme importance in encouraging individuals and organizations to
continue with their difficult struggle.
HISTORY
A
move towards setting up SEJUP started in the very end of the 1980s. It
came from English language people associated with various missionary
groups
working in Brazil because of a number of concerns. It was felt at the
time that many of the critical Brazilian human right issues were not
well known outside of
Brazil. This frequently was because of language
difficulties: Brazil being a Portuguese speaking country, its
language and many of its important issues do not have a large
circulation
worldwide. When Brazilian human rights issues at the time got attention
from a world-wide audience and protest messages
began to arrive to the Brazilian authorities, the result were
interesting. Usually the authorities involved did everything they could
to resolve such issues.
It was also felt that much of the popular material (news, analysis etc)
being produced by Brazilian grassroots groups was not getting to an
international audience. At the time we felt that a service like SEJUP
could provide an opportunity to be a kind of bridge between such
grassroots groups and at the very least an English speaking
international audience. We were very conscious of “opinion
formers” outside Brazil – people and organizations
working in popular publications, radio stations, educational
establishments such as high schools and colleges, religious
organizations, human rights organizations etc. We felt that such
information in English would be very useful for them. Also all of the
founding members were attached to missionary groups who felt that their
‘sending’ countries should know more about
Brazilian human rights
issues.
Initially we started by publishing “SOLIDARIEDADE
BRASIL” – a printed newsletter which we circulated
by ordinary mail to a wide mailing address – we merged
contacts from all our individual mailing lists to make up this list.
This printed newsletter’s chief characteristic was that it
told human stories rather than doing analysis. In late 1991 our contact
ability increased
significantly. We began a weekly newsletter on Brazilian human rights
issues – “News from Brazil”. This was
sent via internet. Here we were before the age of the www and we used a
newsgroup on the internet to get our weekly news out. Right from the
beginning we made an alliance with AGEN (an ecumenical news agency).
This news agency had professional journalists who had excellent access
to grassroots groups but had neither the contacts we had nor the
ability to present this news in
English. If you look at the first newsletters you will see AGEN
mentioned. After some time AGEN experienced severe economic problems
and closed. Initially we also continued mailing
“SOLIDARIEDADE BRASIL” twice a year to our mailing
list but as more and more people signed on to e-mail this practice, was
considered unnecessary.
Towards the end of 1997 we launched our first web site which was hosted
by Oneworld in England.
One of the chief reasons at that time for having a webpage was that we
felt we already had a huge amount of material on Brazilian issues in
English and that this would be very useful for people doing research on
such issues since such material is not easily found elsewhere in
English.
In 2005, we decided to give SEJUP
a better name in English for domain purposes, thus Brazil Justice
Net.
With the new domain came this new web site. We thank here Oz
Web Design which
developed and has maintained the old site from 1999-2005.
Brazil Justice Net is composed solely of volunteers who have various
other
occupations here in Brazil. We have no paid staff
members. We
provide the service out of concern for the people of Brazil, and out of
the
belief that the various social movements with whom we have contact in
this
country have something to offer not only to Brazil, but to the
world.