INDIGENOUS people in Brazil and international human rights campaigners celebrated the removal of an evangelical missionary from the top job at the country’s Uncontacted Tribes Unit today.

Ricardo Lopes Dias, a former member of the notorious evangelical organisation New Tribes Mission (also known as Ethnos360), was first appointed as head of the unit at the Indigenous Affairs Agency (Funai) in February.

However, a judge ruled in May that Mr Dias’s appointment was unlawful and ordered his removal following a legal challenge by public prosecutors and the Union of Indigenous Organisations of the Javari Valley (Univaja).