Brasilia (EFE).- The Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, attributed the latest attacks on the country’s schools to “hate” that is spread “without rules” on the Internet and to arms policies, which he described as an “industry of shooting ”.
Lula summoned authorities at all levels to analyze a wave of attacks and threats against schools that in recent weeks has spread fear in the country and that he linked to “impunity” on the internet and the policies of his predecessor, the far-right Jair Bolsonaro. , which facilitated civilian access to weapons.
The president acknowledged that “violence has always existed” and that “innocents die every day” in the favelas, but said that this has been aggravated by “digital platforms, which earn money by disclosing violence and are increasingly richer”, promoting on the internet what is prohibited in real life.
According to Lula, this situation will not be resolved “with money, but with attitudes” and political decisions that prevent “hate speech” on the internet and replace weapons with a “culture of peace”, with the participation of the families themselves in the process. educational.
“We are not going to transform schools into maximum security prisons,” he said in response to proposals from some sectors, which aim to install weapons detectors in schools or surround them with walls.
Members of the Government, Congress and the Judiciary participated in the meeting, together with governors and mayors who unanimously committed themselves to putting an end to violence against children and adolescents, especially “in the place where they should be, which is the school”, as pointed out by the president of the Supreme Court, Rosa Weber.
Thousands of threats and hundreds of investigated
The Minister of Justice, Flavio Dino, pointed out that the attacks on educational centers have totaled 22 since 2002, but warned that seven occurred since last June and that the last four were this year.
The most serious occurred in the city of Blumenau, in the south of the country, where a 25-year-old man entered a nursery armed with an ax and killed four children and injured four others, an attack in which the Police believe the assailant acted alone.
Dino presented a balance of the actions carried out by the Government in recent weeks, in which the threats and attacks intensified.
According to Dino, 225 people were arrested, 694 adolescents have been summoned to testify before the Police and 155 raids were carried out, within the framework of 1,224 cases investigated.
He said that 756 profiles on social networks have also been suspended and that 7,433 complaints of threats have been received.
He clarified, however, that the daily average has fallen from 1,700 three weeks ago to around 170, although he stressed that the majority was not verified.
According to the minister, this proves that there is a “true epidemic of hate” that “frightens families” and that he attributed to “criminal organizations structured in social networks.”
Electoral rigor as a model of the fight against hate
The president of the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE), Alexandre de Moraes, supported measures that the Government has already adopted to prevent the dissemination of content that encourages violence against children on social networks, but said that it is necessary to be more rigorous.
He linked the threats to educational centers with far-right groups dedicated to misinforming in the face of last year’s elections, which also promoted the attempted coup against Lula on January 8.
According to De Moraes, the Internet “is not and cannot be a lawless land” 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 either.”
He proposed to definitively adopt, for “Nazi, homophobic, racist speeches” and all those that promote violence, that social networks be forced to remove this content “immediately”, as happened in the electoral process.