Former Congressman David Miranda died Tuesday in Rio de Janeiro at the age of 37. His death was announced by his husband, U.S. journalist Glenn Greenwald. He is survived by Mr. Greenwald and their two sons.
Mr. Miranda had been hospitalized since August to treat a gastrointestinal infection. The exact cause of death was not disclosed.
The former congressman’s life was “extraordinary in all aspects,” Mr. Greenwald said of his late husband. Orphaned at the age of five, he was adopted by a neighbor in the Jacarezinho favela in Rio de Janeiro.
Later in life, Mr. Miranda played a “central role” in reporting on the revelations of U.S. National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, Mr. Greenwald said.
In 2013, in the wake of the Pulitzer Prize-winning stories, Mr. Miranda was detained for nine hours at London’s Heathrow Airport under the Terrorism Act. He was stopped while traveling between Berlin and Rio de Janeiro after meeting with filmmaker Laura Poitras, who had been involved in publishing revelations based on the documents leaked by Mr. Snowden.
Mr. Miranda later called Mr. Snowden his “hero” and campaigned unsuccessfully to convince then-President Dilma Rousseff to grant him political asylum in Brazil.
In 2016, with public support from Mr. Snowden, Mr. Miranda won a seat on Rio’s city council. He was the first openly gay man to serve as a city councilor in Rio.
In early 2019, at the beginning of the Jair Bolsonaro administration, Mr. Miranda inherited a seat in Congress when Jean Wyllis resigned after narrowly being re-elected for a third term. While in Brasília, Mr. Miranda campaigned for LGBTQIIA+ rights and served as an alternate of the joint select committee on Fake News.
Due to his husband’s health, Mr. Greenwald chose to withdraw Mr. Miranda’s re-election bid last year.
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva sent his condolences to Glenn Greenwald and his family on Twitter. “A young man with an extraordinary career, who left too soon,” Lula wrote.
Search
