Greenpeace Says Brazilian Internet User Urged Killing Priests, Activists

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Greenpeace has accused a man of urging readers of a popular social networking Web site to kill two priests and environmental activists opposed to the destruction of the Amazon rain forest by soy plantations.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil — Greenpeace has accused a man of urging readers of a popular social networking Web site to kill two priests and environmental activists opposed to the destruction of the Amazon rain forest by soy plantations.


The environmental group said in a statement Friday night that the man had urged readers on the site, called Orkut, to kill opponents of a plan by U.S. grain giant Cargill to export soy from the Amazon River port of Santarem, about 2,500 kilometers (1,500 miles) northwest of Rio.


"If you get an activist in the street, beat him, but beat him to death," read the message posted May 25, according to Greenpeace. It also asked readers to kill priests Edilberto Senna and Jose Boing "for the good of Santarem."


The message was later withdrawn from the site, which has an estimated 8 million users in Brazil, Greenpeace said.


The Brazilian government has complained that some Orkut online communities advocate violence and human rights violations. In response, Google Inc. of Mountain View, California, which runs Orkut, recently agreed to shut down some communities on the site.


Brazilian media reported Saturday that the Brazilian Bar Association had asked the Para state government to provide protection for the two priests, who oppose the expansion of soy plantations in the Amazon. The Bar Association was closed for the weekend.


In 2003, the Minnetonka, Minnesota,-based Cargill opened a US$20 million (euro15.6 million) port in Santarem to cash in on a soybean boom. Federal prosecutors say the port is illegal because Cargill never conducted a required environmental impact assessment and is built on top of a pre-Colombian archaeological site.


Prosecutor Felicia Pontes Jr. said local farmers were cutting down the rain forest to plant soybeans, hoping to ship them from Santarem.


In April, Greenpeace activists in chicken costumes invaded McDonald's restaurants in the United Kingdom and accused Cargill of feeding chickens with soybeans grown illegally in the Amazon.


Last month, Greenpeace protesters shut down the Santarem port and hung a banner reading "Cargill Out" from the port's grain loaders.


Source: Associated Press


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