RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The former president of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, leader of the left-wing Workers’ Party (PT), criticized President Jair Bolsonaro and assured that he would try to prevent the country from being governed by a person guilty of “genocide”.
Brazil “does not deserve a genocidal government, as it is today. The humiliation that Brazil is suffering before the world is unbearable,” Lula said in an inflammatory speech at the launch of a book about his trial in São Paulo.
Lula, the main antagonist of the conservative leader and ahead in the polls for the October 2, 2022, presidential elections, also said that Bolsonaro had been elected thanks to his discourse of “hatred” against politics, although “he has lived his whole life as a politician,” as a city councilor and deputy.
He also criticized the conduct of the Brazilian administration in the face of the health, economic and social crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic, which Bolsonaro repeatedly downplayed and whose potential omissions are under investigation by the Senate.
“That citizen (Bolsonaro) did not tackle the pandemic, hunger, employment, salaries and adopted the old politics of the worst kind for a president in relation to the National Congress,” he claimed.
IS IT LEGAL IN BRAZIL TO CALL SOMEONE GENOCIDAL?
Once again, the Brazilian president is publicly called genocidal and one may wonder if this is legal according to Brazilian legislation. We have found some answers.
The current Brazilian criminal code stipulates the following:
Art. 140 – Insulting someone, violating one’s dignity or decency:
Punishment – imprisonment from one to six months or a fine.
Art. 139 – Defamation of a person by imputing a fact injurious to one’s reputation:
Punishment – imprisonment from three months to one year and a fine.
Legally, defamation consists in ascribing to someone a negative quality that violates one’s honor, dignity, or decency.
It is a criminal offense that consists of damaging someone’s dignity or decency verbally (slander), in writing (libel), or even physically and injuring the victim’s morals. Defamation means dishonoring someone by spreading untrue information.
Genocide is the deliberate partial or total extermination of a community, ethnic, racial, or religious group. Calling someone a genocide thus violates the person’s honor and, depending on the context, constitutes one or more of the above crimes.
Moreover, according to the criminal code, this offense becomes more serious when directed against the President of the individual powers, as provided for by the Law on National Security:
Art. 26 – To slander or defame the President of the Republic, the President of the Federal Senate, the President of the Chamber of Deputies, or the President of the Federal Supreme Court by imputing to them a fact defined as a crime or damaging to their reputation.
Punishment: imprisonment from 1 to 4 years.
Single paragraph – The same penalty shall be imposed on the person who, aware of the illegality of the allegation, passes it on or spreads it.”
Finally, it should be emphasized that those who call someone a Nazi, fascist, or genocide can be held liable not only criminally, but also civilly, i.e., by paying compensation, under Article 5, X of the Constitution, which states that “X – the privacy, private life, honor, and reputation of a person are inviolable, and the right to compensation for material or moral damages resulting from their violation is guaranteed by the Civil Code.”
No one, no Brazilian citizen, not even politicians like Lula, Bolsonaro, or others, and no Justice of the Supreme Court (STF) can be banally called a genocide, unless they are specifically associated with premeditated racially motivated serial murders, and the accuser can prove it in court.
A few days ago, the Brazilian Supreme Court opened an investigation into Bolsonaro for fake news that endangered democracy, because he publicly challenged the Brazilian electoral system and linked it to fraud.
It will be interesting to see if and how the Brazilian judiciary will react now that Lula da Silva has publicly branded the president as genocidal.