Brazil: Lula da Silva attributes recent school attacks to ‘hate’ spread online

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva attributed the latest attacks on schools on Tuesday to “hate” that spreads “without rules” on the Internet and to weapons politics, which he called a “shooting industry”. .”

Lula urged authorities at all levels to analyze the spate of attacks and threats against schools that have sowed fear in the country in recent weeks and which he linked to “impunity” on the Internet and the policies of his far-right predecessor Jair Bolsonarowhich facilitated civilian access to weapons.

The president acknowledged that “violence has always existed” and that in the favelas “innocents die every day”, but said the situation has worsened since ” digital platformswho make money on the exposure of violence and become richer, “promoting in Internet what is forbidden in real life.

In accordance with Lulathis situation will be solved not by “money, but by attitude” and political solutions that prevent “hate speech” on the Internet and replace weapons with a “culture of peace”, with the participation of the families themselves in the educational process.

“We are not going to turn schools into maximum security prisons,” he said in response to proposals from some sectors that are seeking to install weapons detectors in schools or surround them with walls.

The meeting was attended by members GovernmentHe Congress And Power of attorneyalong with governors and mayors who have unanimously committed themselves to ending violence against children and adolescents, especially “in the place where they should be, namely at school,” as the Chief Justice pointed out, Rose Weber.

THOUSANDS OF THREATS AND HUNDREDS INVESTIGATED

Minister of Justice, flavio dinopointed out that there had been 22 attacks on educational centers since 2002, but warned that there had been seven since last June and the last four were this year.

The most serious thing happened in Blumenauin the south of the country, where a 25-year-old man armed with an ax entered a nursery, killed four children and wounded four others, an attack in which Police You think that the perpetrator acted alone.

Dino presented a balance of actions taken by the government in recent weeks as threats and attacks have intensified.

According to Dino, 225 people were arrested, 694 teenagers were called to give evidence to the police and 155 raids were carried out as part of investigations of 1,224 cases.

He said that 756 social media profiles were also blocked and 7,433 complaints of threats were received.

However, he did elaborate that the daily average had fallen from 1,700 three weeks ago to around 170, although he stressed that most of these had not been confirmed.

According to the minister, this proves that there is a “real epidemic of hatred” that “frightens families” and which he attributes to “criminal organizations structured in social networks.”

ELECTORAL RIGIDITY AS A MODEL FOR FIGHTING HATE

President of the Higher Electoral Tribunal (TSE), Alexander de Moraessupported the measures the government has already taken to prevent the dissemination of content that promotes violence against children in social mediabut he said that we should be more strict.

He linked the threats to educational centers to far-right disinformation groups in connection with last year’s elections, which also contributed to the January 8 coup attempt against Lula.

According to De Moraes, the Internet “is not and cannot be a country of lawlessness” and “it is necessary to determine once and for all that what cannot be done in real life cannot be done in the virtual world.”

He proposed to take it definitively, because “the speeches Nazis, homophobic, racistsAnd all those who promote violence, that social networks are forced to remove this content “immediately”, as happened in the electoral process.

(EFE)