Brazil Bans Missionaries From Trying To Contact Isolated Indigenous Tribes

Brazil's highest court has upheld a ruling made last year that bans missionaries from trying to make contact with isolated indigenous tribes.

The Supreme Federal Court (STF) agreed with the group who lodged a lawsuit to protect these isolated people from being influenced by outsiders.

Brazil introduced a law in 1987 that mandated these tribes would be protected, however legislation agreed to in July 2020 permitted religious missionaries to remain inside the reserves that contained isolated indigenous people.

Mongabay reports the Observatory for the Human Rights of Isolated and Recently Contacted Indigenous Peoples (OPI) was furious with the decision and launched legal action against the new federal law.

OPI lawyer Carolina Ribeiro Santana said the July ruling was trying to 'legitimise something that is already forbidden' and said it's 'important to have a decision which reassures the Indigenous policy' during what she called an 'anti-Indigenous government'.

Brazil's President, Jair Bolsonaro, has previously called for the country's indigenous people to be 'integrated' into the wider community.

He's also employed evangelical leaders to key posts in his administration.

Ricardo Lopes Dias, an evangelical missionary, was ironically hired to lead the country's Uncontacted Tribes Unit of Brazil's Indigenous Affairs Agency.

There have been concerns for isolated tribes amid the coronavirus pandemic as they won't have any way of combatting the virus' effects and it could wipe them out. They also don't have any immunity against things like influenza, measles and malaria.

In addition to that, missionaries have been accused of getting these indigenous tribes to relinquish their longstanding beliefs and cultural practices.

Andrew Tonkin, an American evangelical Baptist missionary, was planning to visit an isolated tribe in Brazil last year, however a federal court blocked him from coming.

In addition to that, the court also called for an expulsion of missionaries still inside the Vale do Javari region, which is home to the largest number of isolated Indigenous people in the world.

Eliésio Marubo, a lawyer representing the indigenous people of Vale do Javari, told Mongabay that while the federal court decision was huge, it didn't do much on the ground.

"They remain on the borders of the reserve, trying to co-opt people," he said. "Missionaries have been harassing us for 60 years. They have helicopters, airplanes and they fly from here to the United States."

The court was told that it would be difficult to get the missionaries out of the region because it wasn't clear that the isolated tribes did not consent to their presence.

Featured Image Credit: Gleilson Miranda/Governo do Acre

Topics: News

Stewart Perrie

Stewart Perrie is a Trending Journalist at LADbible. His first job was as a newsreader and journalist at the award winning Sydney radio station, Macquarie Radio. He was solely responsible for the content broadcast on multiple stations across Australia when the MH17, Germanwings and AirAsia disasters unfolded. Stewart has covered the conflict in Syria for LADbible, interviewing a doctor on the front line, and has contributed to the hugely successful UOKM8 campaign.

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