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Some say @realDonaldTrump “misused” the Magnitsky Act by sanctioning Alexandre de Moraes because, they argue, censorship isn’t a human rights violation. This criticism misunderstands the framework that the Magnitsky Act is built upon, which allows the U.S. to impose sanctions on foreign officials who are responsible for “gross violations of internationally recognized human rights against individuals in foreign countries working (1) to expose illegal activities of government officials or (2) to obtain, exercise, defend, or promote human rights and freedoms, including rights to a fair trial and democratic elections.” Freedom of expression and access to information are fundamental human rights codified in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Articles 19 and 21 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which the Brazilian government ratified, giving them the weight of law in Brazil. Moraes has systematically violated all of them. Moraes’s well documented actions are a textbook case of abuse of power to suppress political speech. And it’s exactly the kind of conduct the Magnitsky Act was designed to address. This law does not require genocide or war crimes to be triggered. It requires the systematic denial of basic rights. When a powerful official jails critics, deprives voters of their top choice in elections, censors speech across borders, and bypasses all legal checks and balances, he meets the definition of a gross human rights violator to qualify for the U.S. sanctions designation. To claim otherwise is to imply that freedom of expression is no longer a human right.