May 19, 2022

07:05

Ívina Garcia – Cenarium Magazine

MANAUS – The Bill 4.566/2021 approved by the senators on the afternoon of Wednesday, 18, penalizes racial slurs committed in public places or private places open to the public and increases the imprisonment from two to five years, and fine. Previously, the text penalized from one to three and a half years. Now, the bill goes back to the House of Representatives for analysis of the changes.

For the author of the Bill, Representative Tia Eron (Republicans-BA), racial slurs should be as serious as crimes of racism, especially when committed in public.

“Racial slurs, when committed in public or private places open to the public, affect the honor of a whole collectivity of people who share the same color, race or ethnicity, violating the basic principles of civility”. The lawmaker believes that there isn’t a person in this community who doesn’t feel affected when they see such a situation.

The context of the bill wants people who commit racial slurs in places of sports, religious, artistic or cultural activities to be prohibited from returning to the place, in addition to the penalty. 

The rapporteur of the project in the Senate, Paulo Paim (PT-RS), wrote in his opinion that the same applies to those who “obstruct, impede or use violence against any religious manifestations or practices of African origin.

He also added: “Notwithstanding, even after the guarantee of full religious freedom, constitutionally speaking, the Afro-Brazilian religions, due to the dependence of their trajectory, continue to face, in several spheres, unfavorable legal, political, and social treatment.

The crime is further aggravated in cases of bullying. In the text, the rapporteur typifies it as “relaxation, amusement, or recreation. In this case, the penalty is increased by one-third to one-half, as well as if the racial slur is committed against a public servant who is exercising his profession. 

The bill also provides that in all civil and criminal proceedings, a lawyer must accompany the victim, either a private lawyer or one from the public defender’s office.

Slow progress

For Christian Rocha, a racial activist and president of the National Institute of Afro-Origin (Inaô), the approval means an advance for minorities, but the change should not stop there: “This is the way forward, but the applicability of the laws should be severe. Unfortunately, our legal system, in theory, is one that you read and are amazed at. But when you put it into practice you see that structural racism has taken over. Our justice system, unfortunately, works against poor and black people in general,” he laments.

Christian told CENARIUM that, as a leader, he has already tried to dialogue with politicians to create projects that draw the population’s attention to know about the crimes of racism and racial insult. “The population doesn’t know the laws and their rights. If all public places had a notice about the laws on racism and insult, maybe it would lead the population to reflect.

For him, the last few years have shown catastrophic cases for society as a whole. “We are living in a very sad time and disastrous moments. I remembered what the great legislator Pericles said: ‘Justice is like a spider’s web, it only catches small insects and they are torn by the big ones’.”

Christian believes that despite the creation and diffusion of laws, the delay in the investigation has been one of the obstacles to the solution of the cases. “What strengthens racism are not the laws, but the slowness, the delay in the investigation of a case, the delay in opening a report, and, mainly, the neglect and the way crimes of racism and racial slurs are treated,” he concludes.

Racism Case

This delay is felt in the skin every day by physiotherapist Afonso Celso, 55 years old. He was a victim of racial abuse in a shopping mall in Manaus in 2020. Two years after the crime, the process still remains unsolved.

In an interview to CENARIUM, Afonso said that, at the time, when the case was reported all over Brazil, he was contacted by several media outlets, international companies, and received support from entities.

He tells that, at the moment he was confronting the woman who had called him “monkey”, the mall’s security guards restrained him, pulled him into a corner, took all the information, but never called him back.

“The security guards took me to a corner, took all my identification, gave me a ticket so I wouldn’t pay for parking, and meanwhile she left. At the time, Afonso filed the lawsuit against the mall, for not having the woman’s identification.

“Everyone contacted me, international newspapers and national press. I did the B.O., the police were wonderful with me, but didn’t go ahead because I didn’t have identification of the person. Today, I know who the person is, and she is cited in the process, but I am not interested in her arrest, because a case like this is a flagrant situation,” he says.

Afonso relates the revolt of not being able to have the woman caught in the act, and exposes the negligence of the mall in not preventing the woman’s escape. “I had that situation with me at the mall. What I wanted was for practical measures to be taken, for the mall to mobilize.”

He says that, after the repercussion of the case, he ended up losing his job and, until today, he is embarrassed every time someone asks about the situation, and he says that nothing has been solved. “I had a loss, because my patients all got to know about it, I had a level of embarrassment at the time; and afterwards, I am not a militant, I am a simple citizen who wanted to have the right to go to the mall,” he reports.