Nikolas Ferreira will respond for attack on trans congresswoman – 08/02/2023 – Politics

The Justice of Minas Gerais decided that federal deputy Nikolas Ferreira (PL-MG) will respond to the accusation of racial injury for his statement against also federal deputy Duda Salabert (PDT-MG).

The decision was taken this Tuesday (7) by the Court of Justice of Minas Gerais in the analysis of an appeal filed by the Public Ministry. The penalty in case of conviction is up to three years in jail.

The action began in a criminal complaint filed by Duda Salabert, who is a transgender woman, after statements by Nikolas to the newspaper Estado de Minas in 2020. Both had just been elected councilors for Belo Horizonte.

Justice has not yet decided whether he becomes a defendant in the process, but has now defined the eventual framework of the case.

Nikolas, who last year was elected the most voted federal deputy in the country, with 1.4 million votes, said in an interview with the newspaper that he would refer to Duda in the Legislative House as “he”. “He’s a man. That’s what’s on his certificate, regardless of what he thinks he is,” he said.

Duda was also elected last year for a seat in the Chamber of Deputies. The parliamentarian had the third highest number of votes among the candidates for a chair in the House for Minas, receiving 208 thousand votes.

In a first instance analysis, Nikolas’ attack was classified by the Justice as an unqualified injury, which would give the parliamentarian, in case of conviction, from one to six months in prison or payment of a fine.

In a decision this Tuesday, however, the judge Rinaldo Kennedy Silva accepted an appeal from the Public Prosecutor’s Office, which argued that it was a qualified insult, in this case, racial, a crime with a penalty of one to three years in prison in case of conviction.

The Public Ministry’s arguments were based, among other points, on the precedent of the STF (Federal Supreme Court) in a 2019 action in which the court decided that homophobic and transphobic conducts are classified as racial.

In a note, Nikolas stated that he did not commit a crime against anyone. “We still haven’t had access to the decision that judged a conflict of jurisdiction between instances. It is important to point out that the Justice has not made any assessment of what I am being accused of”, he said.

“The process is at the beginning and regardless of where I fall I am calm to defend myself, because I believe in Justice and I know that I have never committed any crime against anyone, having only made use of my freedom of expression.”

It is not the first time that the now federal deputy Nikolas Ferreira is questioned in court in relation to this topic.

In July last year, the Public Ministry opened a criminal investigation procedure to investigate the disclosure, by the then councilor, of a video about a 14-year-old trans student in the bathroom of a private school in Belo Horizonte.

In comments about the video, Nikolas claims that the trans student’s presence in the bathroom caused embarrassment to other students. A representation was made against Nikolas by the then councilors Bella Gonçalves and Iza Lourença, from PSOL, and by the National LGBTI Alliance.

According to information from the Public Prosecutor’s Office, the investigative procedure is in the instruction phase, and Nikolas and the school director have already been heard. Testimonials from the trans student and her mother are still missing.

Deputy Duda said that Tuesday’s decision “is an important sign that the Court recognizes the seriousness of what happened, that we are indeed discussing transphobia, and that Nikolas Ferreira may soon become a defendant and be arrested for this crime”.

She said that her colleague at the time used a “joking and aggressive” tone and that she filed lawsuits because it was “impossible to enter social networks without encountering transphobia” against her.