This chapter, co-authored by Susan Appe, is included in the Open Access Book A Relational Approach to
NGOs in Global Politics, Published by Oxford following this link

In March 2016, then-Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff signed the country’s first law
ever to be specifically designed to counter terrorism. Purportedly linked to international pressure from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF)—the standards-setting
transnational organization which combats threats to the international financial
system—the law was the outcome of a contentious legislative process started in June
2015. From its introduction into parliamentary debates, Brazil’s organized civil society mobilized to contest and curb its potentially negative impact on
the Brazilian civic space, as different types of protests and demonstrations could ultimately be considered as terrorist acts by the government. The issue is even more
pressing considering the country’s historical tendency to criminalize organized civil
society and social movements, and the substantial number of bills criminalizing
demonstrations that had been introduced in response to protests in 2013.