Brazil // Escalation of fascist violence~ 4 min

By Víctor Boaventura

Brazil has been living an exponential growth of fascist violence at the hands of individuals and groups who support Jair Bolsonaro. The far right candidate won the first round of the presidential elections with almost 50% of the votes.

Reports of insults, aggressions and assassination or rape attempts have multiplied since last Sunday. The worst case happened in Salvador da Bahia. Romualdo Rosário da Costa, a well known capoeira master, was killed after revealing that he had voted for Haddad.

The 63 year old man, known as “Moa do Katendê”, was at a bar in Salvador when a man started chanting the name of Jair Bolsonaro. This situation motivated a political discussion. When Moa revealed that he had voted for Haddad, the Bolsonaro supporter stabbed him 12 times.

Hunting for leftists

Bolsonaro supporters have started a hunt for left militants. Several militants, family members or even people dressed in red have been targeted with insults, threats and aggressions.

• “The sister of the councilwoman Marielle Franco, who was murdered in Rio de Janeiro, reported on her Facebook page that she received threats when walking on the street while carrying her two year old daughter this past Monday the 8th. She wasn’t wearing any clothing connected to a politician, party or flag.”
• In São Paulo, a worker for the PSOL presidential campaign of Guilherme Boulos was threatened with a firearm by a Jair Bolsonaro sympathizer.
• A young man was beaten during the election night by sympathizers of the PSL candidate for wearing a red t-shirt. Several people started hitting the youth while shouting campaign slogans. It’s possible to hear some of them shouting “he is a communist” in the video of the incident as justification for the aggressions.
• “Lucia Pedroso Nogueira, president of Sindaen (Water, Sewers and Sanitation Worker’s Union of Maringá and Northeast region of Paraná), got four stitches on her index and little finger” as consequence of an aggression during a PT campaign event.
• A young militant, by the name of Calil, suffered cuts in the head and legs and twisted his foot when he was run over by a Bolsonaro supporter during Sunday night, in Curitiba. He also reports that, when he presented a police complaint, all the station computers had PSL candidate stickers.
• A student at the Federal University of Paraná (UFPR) was beaten by a far right group for wearing an MST cap. The student suffered several head lesions caused by multiple broken glass bottles wielded by the aggressors.
• An LGBT activist was beaten and humiliated in the middle of the street by a group of 3 men when they noticed an LGBT flag and the #NotHim sign on her backpack. As if that wasn’t enough, two of the men held her arms while a third cut a swastika on her lumbar region with a switchblade. “The titular delegate of the 1st Precinct of Porto Alegre, Paulo Jardim, says that the aggression suspects still haven’t been identified and that the drawing isn’t an extremist symbol.”
• “Two Bolsonaro supporters assaulted a journalist and threatened to rape her. The woman was saved by a car that drove nearby and scared off the aggressors. After voting, the woman headed for her car, which was parked on the road. Two men wielding a piece of iron approached her on the street. “They had an iron, like a switchblade. They saw my badge and said I was ‘rich little leftist’ and threatened me with rape”, she says. She relates that they cut her on her arm and chin.”
• Bolsonaro supporters assaulted a young transexual in Belo Horizonte. It all happened when Guilderth Andrade, better known as Guil, refused to accept a PSL campaign sticker from a campaign caravan passing nearby the bus stop where he was. “I said: ‘I don’t want to vote for him, you must show some respect’ and I removed the sticker.” Suddenly, he felt a slap on his back. The young man had applied another sticker. “I tore it off again.” The man then swept Guil’s feet. “I fell, his boot cut my ankle. If I tried to get up, he would keep assaulting me”, Guil said.
• “In Manaus, Amazon, Elói Capucho was assaulted and received death threats from a Jair Bolsonaro sympathizer for being gay and against the election of the PSL candidate.”

In the last few days, Bolsonaro supporters carried out around 50 attacks in 18 states – 6 of which against PSOL militants – according to a survey by the Apublica site.