Liberal group says flag was torn down by left-wing students

The União Juventude e Liberdade (UJL), a student organization with a liberal bias, had a flag ripped and torn by left-wing militants from the União da Juventude Rebelião (UJR) last Thursday (2) during the Biennial of the National Union of Students ( UNE), in Rio de Janeiro. UJL students also allege that two members of the group were physically attacked and filed a police report.

During the event, members of the liberal group carried a Gadsden flag, which has the image of a rattlesnake and the phrase “Don’t Tread On Me” (in Portuguese, “Don’t Tread On Me”). “They claimed to steal our flag because it was a Nazi symbol, and it is not and we made a post explaining its true meaning”, informed the organization’s communication coordination.

After the episode, the group accused of vandalism took a position on Instagram: “With the UJR, fascists are not created! During the 13th Biennial of the National Union of Students, the União Juventude Liberdade opened a flag used by North American neo-Nazis. Fascists will not be tolerated and will be treated as they deserve.”

The UJL, on the other hand, said, through the social network, that the Gadsden flag is “about love and freedom”. The symbol is related to the founding of the United States and is associated with ideas of libertarianism. “Criminalizing this symbol is an attempt to criminalize the liberal movement. Communists and socialists know all this, and insistent and lying repetition is the main strategy for creating this headless narrative. Libertarians don’t believe in borders and love free migration,” the organization said.

Who are the entities

The UJL states on its channels that it fights for individual freedoms and defends freedom of expression, press and market. It also has as flags the defense of private property and sex education, the fight against “LGBTphobia” and pedophilia. Despite being associated with right-wing thoughts, the organization is not conservative.

The UJR, on the other hand, is a group sympathetic to socialism that has as its “guide for action the revolutionary ideas of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Che Guevara”.