Brazilian politicians, celebrities and social activists have paid tribute to the vivacious, loving and combative former congressman and campaigner David Miranda who has died in Rio de Janeiro aged 37.
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva celebrated the “extraordinary trajectory” of the favela-born politician who served in the country’s congress between 2019 and 2022 and was a powerful voice of resistance during the far-right administration of Jair Bolsonaro.
The death of Miranda, who was also a columnist for Guardian US, was announced on Tuesday by his husband, the American journalist and lawyer Glenn Greenwald, with whom he raised two sons, João and Jonathan.
“He would have turned 38 tomorrow,” Greenwald tweeted. “He died in full peace, surrounded by our children and family and friends.”
Miranda was admitted to hospital last August with a severe gastrointestinal infection and died early on Tuesday after nine months in intensive care.
“[I feel] such immense sorrow at the departure of my dear friend David Miranda. A funny, loving, party-loving guy who never gave up fighting for life and for the people of the favela,” tweeted the leftist lawmaker Renata Souza, remembering Miranda’s friendship with Marielle Franco, the Rio politician assassinated in 2018.
One of Brazil’s most celebrated rappers, Emicida, tweeted: “Today Brazil has lost a courageous young man who, in fighting for his dreams, ended up unshackling the dreams of many others too.”
Brazil’s first lady, Rosângela Lula da Silva, said Miranda left a legacy “of struggle and love”. “He had a vivacity which brought joy to politics,” tweeted the president of Lula’s Worker’s party (PT), Gleisi Hoffmann.
Another leading leftist, Guilherme Boulos, remembered how Miranda had relentlessly championed the LGBT cause throughout Brazil. “He will be greatly missed,” tweeted Boulos, a member of the Socialism and Liberty party (PSOL) to which Miranda belonged.
Greenwald, 56, remembered how his husband had been born in Jacarezinho, one of Rio’s most deprived favelas, and been orphaned at the age of five after the death of his mother.
Despite those humble origins, Miranda rose to become the first gay man elected to Rio’s city council and played an important role in 2013’s Edward Snowden leaks, which Greenwald spearheaded. That year, Miranda was controversially detained for nine hours at London’s Heathrow airport as he travelled back to Rio with memory sticks containing documents relating to that project.
“He inspired so many with his biography, passion, and force of life,” Greenwald wrote.
“David was singular: the strongest, most passionate, most compassionate man I’ve known. Nobody had a bad word for him. I can’t describe the loss and pain.”
In a 2019 New York Times profile of the couple, Greenwald remembered how he had met his future husband on Rio’s Ipanema beach after Miranda knocked his drink over with a ball.
“I was not at all the type that ever fell in love with someone at first sight,” Greenwald remembered. “But the passion, David’s intensity, it was like two asteroids colliding.”