PT councilor impeached for repudiating a gesture identified as Nazi goes to court to annul decision – 02/28/2023 – Mônica Bergamo

Councilor Maria Tereza Capra (PT) filed a lawsuit in court to annul the legislative decree that determined the removal of her mandate earlier this month.

The parliamentarian was impeached on February 4 for breach of parliamentary decorum for having posted a video on her Instagram in repudiation of a coup demonstration that took place last year in the city of São Miguel do Oeste, in Santa Catarina.

At the protest, those present raised their right arm above their face – a gesture that was compared by Maria Tereza and entities such as Conib (Israeli Confederation of Brazil) to a Nazi salute.

According to the report of the commission of inquiry, the petista was responsible for “spreading false news and attributing to the citizens of Santa Catarina and the municipality the crime of giving a Nazi salute and being the birthplace of a neo-Nazi cell”.

In the annulment action sent to the 1st Civil Court of the Comarca of São Miguel do Oeste, the councilor’s defense claims that she suffered “political persecution” for being the only parliamentarian of the Workers’ Party of the City Council of the city.

The document also says that “discomfort with the gesture [registrado no vídeo] it was not exclusive and did not come first” from the parliamentarian. Maria Tereza’s defense also argues that the content was replicated in various media and became the subject of an investigation by the state Public Prosecutor’s Office.

“Maria Tereza Capra’s reaction translated a perfectly compatible impulse towards choreographic representation in her city […]the way the German Nazis addressed themselves in the 1930s and 1940s, in famous and terrifying manifestations of praise to their maximum leader, Chancellor Adolf Hitler”, follows the action.

The parliamentarian’s lawyer, Fabio Tofic Simantob, says that “nothing survives to justify any kind of punishment, much less the most drastic and traumatic of them, which is the loss of mandate resulting from impeachment”.

“The facts narrated in the popular denunciations are incapable of subsuming the conduct of the councilor to the types of sanctions provided for in the aforementioned devices”, he says.

In the post on social networks, Maria Tereza also said that “Santa Catarina is the birthplace of the neo-Nazi cell in this country”. “São Miguel do Oeste has just been identified as a neo-Nazi cell. And those people, wearing the colors of our green and yellow flag, demonstrate in front of the Army barracks in the eyes of the authorities. And they still do so by blocking a federal highway. They still do one Nazi salute,” she wrote.

The councilor deleted the publication after receiving threats and had to leave the city temporarily.

A month earlier, the Civil Police of Santa Catarina had arrested six people on suspicion of being part of a neo-Nazi group. Arrest and search warrants were served in the municipalities of Florianópolis, Joinville, Maravilha, São José and São Miguel do Oeste.

The preliminary investigation of the State Public Ministry considered that the gesture in the video was not made with the intention of making an apology for Nazism. The episode was investigated by Gaeco (Special Action Group to Combat Organizations), a task force coordinated by the agency together with the different police forces.

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THIRD SIGN

Actress Marisa Orth attended the unique presentation of the show “Paris”, at Theatro Municipal de São Paulo, on Monday night (27). The work, which mixes theater and dance, is directed by Jorge Takla. The mast João Carlos Martins passed by.

with BIANKA VIEIRA, KARINA MATIAS It is MANOELLA SMITH

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