War: Government does not accept nonsense, says Pimenta – 10/19/2023 – Power

The minister of Secom (Secretariat of Social Communication), Paulo Pimenta (PT), states that all civil servants with leadership positions must be careful with their statements because the consequences end up falling on the federal government, even more so on delicate topics such as war between Israel and the terrorist group Hamas.

The alert comes on the same day as the dismissal of the president of EBC (Empresa Brasil de Comunicação), Hélio Doyle, for anti-Israel posts. In one case, Doyle shared a message that he called supporters of the Israeli state “idiots.”

“It’s not about talking bad about A or B. It’s about, firstly, treating the moment with respect, seriousness, gravity, delicacy”, declared Pimenta, in an interview with Sheeton Wednesday (18).

“If Brazil’s conduct is one of respect, of seeking to promote peace, of maintaining a capacity for dialogue with all the actors that are in this war scenario and guaranteeing the safety of Brazilian families that are there, it is this type of behavior and posture that we expect from all civil servants who have a leadership position within the government”, he adds.

On Wednesday, the government fired Doyle as president of the EBC following a series of social media posts by the journalist criticizing Israel and its supporters. The publications come at a time when Brazil temporarily holds the presidency of the UN Security Council, which has dealt with the conflict in a series of meetings.

Furthermore, the Brazilian government is in negotiations to repatriate Brazilian citizens who are still in the Gaza Strip, the current stage of the conflict.

“You don’t have to be a Zionist to support Israel. Being an idiot is enough,” says the message republished by Doyle, who later deleted it. The original message shared by the journalist was written by cartoonist Carlos Latuff.

Pimenta does not specifically comment on the publications and Doyle’s dismissal, but he demanded that every employee who holds a leadership role “responsibility with any statement, any attitude”.

“Because who ends up answering for it is the government as a whole. In this specific case, from the moment the president expresses a position and this position has as its principles Brazil, at the head of the UN Security Council, working for the promotion of peace and the guarantee of repatriation of all Brazilians who are in the area, from the conflict zone, this orientation must be observed by everyone without exception”, he states.

The head of Secom, on the other hand, says that these guidelines do not represent any type of censorship or prohibition of demonstrations about the conflict in the Middle East. But he warns that it will be necessary to differentiate what would be an opinion from “shambles” or “gratuitous attacks”.

“There is no guidance in this regard [de proibir manifestações]. What there is is a common sense recommendation, that at the moment when the President of the Republic has a public position on the subject, this position becomes the position of the government and its main spokespeople, who are the ministers and the first level of government”, he declared.

According to him, there is “a very long distance between having an opinion and making a mockery, a mockery, a gratuitous aggression that is not in line with the conduct that the president expects from each one of us.”

The war between Israel and Hamas broke out on the 7th after the terrorist group carried out attacks on Israeli territory that left at least 1,400 people dead. Israel began a retaliatory bombing campaign. At least 3,500 Palestinians died.

Lula promptly condemned the attacks against Israel, classifying them as “terrorist attacks”. However, he did not mention the terrorist group Hamas in his demonstration.

Brazil adopts the position of only recognizing as terrorist the groups defined by the UN Security Council — which is not the case with Hamas.

More recently, Lula used his social network to lament the attack on a hospital in the Gaza Strip, which left at least 500 people dead. But he was careful not to attribute the action to any particular side.

“The attack on Baptista Al-Ahli Hospital is an unjustifiable tragedy. Wars make no sense. Lives lost forever. Hospitals, houses, schools, built with so much sacrifice destroyed in moments. I repeat this appeal. The innocent cannot pay for the insanity of war,” he wrote.