Following an appearance in a recent IPA news release, Maria Mendonca, the director of Brazil’s Network for Social Justice and Human Rights, penned this article for AlterNet in which she discusses the unintended consequences of what she calls “impeachment theater.”

She writes: “The impeachment is aimed at distracting from the very real crimes perpetrated by the congressmen sanctimoniously casting judgment on the president. Since the beginning of the process, it was clear that the main charge brought against president Dilma Rousseff, based on an accounting mechanism characterized as “fiscal pedaling” (“pedaladas fiscais” in Portuguese), had the barely hidden objective of curtailing investigations of corruption against Congress members and implementing a conservative agenda that has consistently been rejected by the majority of Brazilian society in presidential elections since 2002.”

“This type of manipulation would not be possible without the support of Brazil’s major media outlets, which have mostly abandoned even the pretense of objectivity. The good news is that there is a growing number of independent, alternative media sources, which present accurate information from diverse perspectives.”

Mendonca recently wrote “Brazil’s Parliamentary Vote Is A Coup,” for The Progressive. She is also the editor of the book “Human Rights in Brazil“.