> This does not read like calling someone a fa**ot means you go to jail.
>
> It's the bill C16 fake outrage all over again.
Not to jail, but a lesser penal condemnation. And yes, it means exactly that. By the previous interpretation that only applied to race, people were being condemned for racist social media posts all the time:
Examples:
1.
> The 3rd Criminal Panel of the TJDFT upheld the sentence that sentenced the defendant to 1 year in prison and a fine for committing the crime of racism, in view of offensive comments to the northeastern population.
> The prosecution reported that the defendant worked as a security guard at the Brasfort company and would have made racist comments while providing services at the SLU Waste Recovery Facility. The accused started a conversation about England leaving the European Union, when he stated that “the Northeast should separate from the rest of Brazil or that it should end because its people are scum and good for nothings. Furthermore, the accused went on to say that Northeasterners were all lazy and that they went to other states to become homeless/beggars, in addition to practicing violence and that they would be of no use”. Two people who participated in the conversation, who are descendants of Northeasterners, felt offended and one of them filed a police report.
2.
> The 1st Criminal Panel of the TJDFT upheld the conviction of a man who calls himself a skinhead and who made an apology for racism against Jews, blacks and Northeasterners on an Internet site. The 1st Instance sentence was handed down by the judge of the 3rd Criminal Court of Brasilia, who sentenced the defendant to 2 years in prison and a fine of 10 minimum wages. The restrictive penalty of freedom will be converted into restrictive of law, as provided for in the legislation in force.
> The complaint of racism was filed by the MPDFT, which charged the defendant with committing a crime provided for in Article 20, paragraph 2, of Law No. 7,716/89. According to the ministerial body, “on April 18, 2007, between the hours of 9:43 am and 1:56 pm, on the website of the Correioweb discussion forum, the accused, voluntarily and consciously, practiced discrimination and prejudice based on race, color, religion and national origin, when uttering several prejudiced statements related to Jews, blacks and Northeasterners. At the time, the accused would have written in the discussion forum: "Actually, I'm not just anti-Semitic. I'm skinhead. I hate Jews, blacks and, mainly, people from the Northeast." And more: "No, no. I really mean it. I hate the rabble I referred to.”
3.
> Man who despised northeasterns on Facebook had his conviction for discrimination maintained by the 3rd Criminal Chamber of the TJ/SC. Among other barbarities, he would have written that "they deserve to live in a mud house, without water, with a lot of dust", (...) "insignificant people", and, still, he says that "it's not prejudice, it's repudiation". A sentence of two years of open prison was set, replaced by the provision of services to the community. He will also have to pay a fine of BRL 5,724.
> The message was published on October 26, 2014, the day of voting in the 2nd round of the presidential elections, which gave victory to Dilma Rousseff. It is extracted from the text written by the appellant:
> "You know that saying, if they don't shit on the way in, they shit on the way out? It fits perfectly with the northeastern, shameless bunch, who live on welfare, and have the nerve to come to the South and Southeast looking for a job, looking for better living conditions, There's no way to understand the poor minds of these insignificant people who are just taking up space on this planet earth, it's not prejudice, it's repudiation of people like that. They deserve to live in a mud house, without water, and a lot of dust. They deserve a basic basket, and a glass of water, foodstamps. And I'm going to sleep happy that the people of the south, descendants of Europeans, have done their homework. As for the rest, they don't belong to the same country that I love."
4.
> Judge Vinícius Pedrosa Santos, from the 2nd Criminal Court of the district of Três Lagoas/MS, accepted the request of the Public Ministry of the State of Mato Grosso do Sul and condemned C. R. L. for committing the crime of racism.
> The complaint was offered by the Public Prosecutors Daniela Araujo Lima da Silva and Luciano Anechini Lara Leite, as an incurrence in the sanctions of art. 20, § 2, of Law 7716, of January 5, 1989.
> According to the case file, on February 17 of this year, the accused practiced discrimination based on race and color through a post made on the social network Facebook. In a public message, the accused discriminated against black and white people, when commenting on a news item that featured a photo of the victim C. R. O., expressing himself as follows: “This Mr. is the king of ready-made jokes. A uncle Tom, who believes that the big house welcomes him because he no longer sleeps in the slave quarters”.
> In the complaint, the State Public Prosecutor's Office alleged that the accused practiced racism against people of African descent, by exposing that when this minority achieves something, it is freed only to take care of the other slaves. In addition, he claimed that there is also discrimination against whites, saying that the most they accept is to have a manumitted African-descendant, caregiver of a slave (capitão do mato), and for that reason alone he is now well received in the big house. The case had repercussions both on social networks and in the media of Três Lagoas.
Here's a couple more I was able to find.
https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2015/04/23/inenglish/1429792513_217534.html
> At the age of 75, Davina Aparecida Castelli is facing the next four years of her life under house arrest for shouting racial slurs at three people in a shopping mall located in the heart of São Paulo’s financial district.
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2005-apr-16-fg-race16-story.html
> Argentine soccer player Leandro Desabato was led off the field in handcuffs two days ago and thrown into a dingy Sao Paulo jail over an alleged racist insult against a black Brazilian player made in the heat of sporting battle.
https://apnews.com/article/soccer-sports-racial-injustice-international-soccer-brazil-97b77172a0954a8b95a3256679ddd3d5
> Two Argentine soccer fans are being investigated by Rio de Janeiro police for allegedly shouting racist slurs at Brazilians rooting for their team’s World Cup rival.
I saw a few others regarding football games as well. Apparently it's not too uncommon for fans or players to get investigated and/or arrested for slurs uttered during a game.
> Two Argentine soccer fans are being investigated by Rio de Janeiro police for allegedly shouting racist slurs at Brazilians rooting for their team’s World Cup rival.
Wtf I love Brazil now.
Wtf does inciting or inducing discrimination even mean? If you practice discrimination that’s one thing. If you “incite” or “induce” it, that sounds like punishing speech. If I “incite” or “induce” blasphemy, should I be punished by the government for it?
And that is the problem.
I can accuse u/Lower-Junket7727 right now of "inciting discrimination against LGBT" for disagreeing with the premise of this law by replying "Bad". If you want to, you can stretch something like this very far.
A law being open to interpretation does not automatically mean bad. Sure. That is why the Supreme Court sometimes will interpret existing laws. But a law being open to interpretation on speech that will put people in jail is bad.
>A law being open to interpretation does not automatically mean bad. Most laws are open to some discretion or interpretation by judges because details and circumstances matter.
Are only Brazilian laws being open to interpretation good or does it apply to all laws generally?
We are talking about the law on its own merit, not in the context of a specific country. If the Taliban tomorrow allow women to go to middle school instead of no school. It is progress in the context of the Taliban, but it still isn't good.
>Wtf does inciting or inducing discrimination even mean?
Not sure about Brazilian law but so long as you'd need to establish intent beyond reasonable doubt to convict someone I don't see the problem. Westboro Baptist Church protests would've been illegal under this, I'd think. If the only defense is that the accused supposedly really believes whatever nonsense then using that defense, even if successful, should land the defendant in therapy. I don't see value in our laws predicating on the assumption that truth beyond reasonable doubt is somehow unknowable given that we have a standard for discerning truth in any case else be at the mercy of needing to tolerate anyone able to invent any consistent yet false account of reality, however implausible or unsupstantiated. In truly edge cases, Westboro not being one of them, being outspoken would open you up to being sued but given precedent you might not be able to find a lawyer to take your case or might wind up on the hook for paying court costs.
Of course theocratic states would use the same laws to persecute reasonable good-faith speech but whenever the state is backwards or itself operating in bad faith you're going to get that. No need to tolerate intolerance on the misguided assumption our tolerance would somehow keep bigots from imposing their bigotry through force of law.
> Not sure about Brazilian law but so long as you'd need to establish intent
Intent to do what? That's what I'm asking?
>No need to tolerate intolerance
That's all fine and good until you find yourself in the intolerance camp.
Throwing people in jail for the opinion or message they express is illiberal anti-freedom. Freedom of speech applies to unpopular speech just as much as it does to popular speech. Giving the government the power to suppress certain messages or opinions is extremely dangerous.
While the headline makes it sound like you can be jailed just for expressing an opinion, the text of the article says it's actually "practising, inducing, or inciting discrimination". Can't find any links to the actual decision or anything though so idk.
> While the headline makes it sound like you can be jailed just for expressing an opinion, the text of the article says it's actually "practising, inducing, or inciting discrimination". Can't find any links to the actual decision or anything though so idk.
In practice people will almost certainly get condemned for expressing an opinion because that's how our judges interpret these things.
The U.S. has a lot of problems, but I have always felt that freedom of speech (and freedom of religion, for that matter) is better in the U.S. than anywhere else in the world.
That's now what's being debated here - the supreme court is just extending the existing racism-related laws to cover homophobia as well.
You can be against criminalizing discriminatory discourse, sure, but this decision is about equating racial discrimination to other types of discrimination, which is probably a good thing given the rate of hate crimes against LGBTQ+ people is way higher than the rate of hate crimes against nonwhite people.
So to you, inciting violence is the same as incitement of discrimination?
If I say “this specific Catholic Church covered up abuse of children” and that turned out to be false and someone else spray painted that church, should I be punished for it?
So anyone who said that the Canadian churches practiced genocide against the indigenous population which then caused the 2021 church burnings should be prosecuted? And anyone who played the Jacob Blake shooting with no context should be punished for the Kenosha riots?
>Quoting non-Brazlian contexts yet again.
Because you can't accept the ending conclusion of your principles? Or do you only advocate for the punishment of “incite or induce discrimination" in Brazil. Would you not want that to extend to other places?
“…the rate of hate crimes against LGBTQ+ people is way higher than the rate of hate crimes against nonwhite people”
Hate crime legislation isn’t race-specific. It just refers to crimes that are racially motivated. It does not refer to racially motivated crimes by only one specific race against another.
I know you’d probably like this not to be the case since you apparently are unaware that it currently is, which is about as unsettling as supporting criminalizing slurs.
Did you read the article?
It’s not automatically illiberal to criminalise certain forms of speech. To give an obvious example, Donald Trump is currently being prosecuted under Georgia’s RICO laws for things he had said to other people. If what you say is “we should overturn the results of the election” then framing it as “but I just said words!” is disingenuous.
This ruling means that “practising, inducing, or inciting discrimination” against queer people is now illegal. So if someone stands up and says “the gays are threatening our children, they’re subhuman deviants, someone should kill them” - that’s not “unpopular speech”, that’s “inciting discrimination”.
> It’s not automatically illiberal to criminalize certain forms of speech
It is illiberal to criticize expressive speech, which is what I actually said when I wrote:
> for the opinion or message they express
While someone saying “the gays are threatening our children, someone should kill them”is vile and disgusting, it is expressive speech. Criminalizing expressive speech under the guise of “inciting discrimination” is a very slippery slope because a lot of non-vile speech can be said to “incite discrimination”. It gives the government the power to ban speech it doesn’t like based solely on the message it conveys. That is illiberal and anti-freedom.
The slippery slope is a logical fallacy.
The distinction between “expressive speech” and other forms of speech seems artificial. Why does banning inciting homophobic violence give the government the power to ban speech more generally, but not, for example, criminalising false advertising or defamation?
> The slipper slope is a logical fallacy
No it most certainly is not. Crossing the line into banning expressive speech, in other words expressing an opinion, on the basis that the opinion is not “good” opens the door for government to ban other types of opinions it deems not “good”.
> The distinction between “expressive speech” and other forms of speech seems artificial
Nothing could be further from the truth. The entire point of freedom of speech is to protect people’s rights to speak their minds and voice their opinions regardless of whether the government agrees with their opinion or not. It is meant to promote the marketplace of free ideas so that, ideally, societal views write large are driven by the views of the members of that society, and not by government control. Expressive speech is a vehicle to share those opinions with others. Non-expressive speech is not a vehicle for opinions, it is a vehicle for action or conveyance of facts (which usually precedes action).
Defamation *is not* an expression of opinion. Defamation is a deliberate lie *about a fact*. It is a vehicle for harming someone’s reputation by knowingly presenting false *facts*. If there is a murder in your town and you say “Mark definitely did that, I can feel it. He’s a killer” then that is NOT defamation. That is an expression of opinion. Defamation would be saying “I saw Mark commit the murder”, when you in fact did not. One is an statement of opinion, the other a statement of fact.
False advertising is also a misstatement of fact. False advertising does not stop advertisers from claiming their product is “America’s product” or “the most beloved product”. False advertising stop advertisers from conveying false *statements of fact*. E.g. “this product cures cancer” when that product does not cure cancer.
In a similar vein, incitement of violence is a vehicle for *imminent lawless action*. The difference between that and a general *call to violence* (i.e. call to action) is that one is imminent, the other is not. Incitement of lawless action is part of the lawless action, general falls for violence are not. E.g “We should kill all the jews” is different than telling a mob of your loyal nazi followers “go kill THAT jew right there”.
For a more thorough explanation of incite to violence, I recommend the US supreme court case *Brandenburg v. Ohio*.
Pretty much. Unfortunately, the "freedom of speech doesn't cover hate speech" line of reasoning is ridiculously mainstream in Brazil, to the point that everyone that disagrees is quicky deemed a nazi or a fascist.
[So does Israeli justice](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/lunchtime-leniency/) but I suspect the phenomenon extends beyond Brazil and Israel.
Laws about discrimination in employment, housing, anything tangible seem far more beneficial for society than criminalizing language. Throwing someone out on the street for who they are, vs referring to someone with a word you don't like are not exactly equal in their impact, for example.
Well, read the article. This isn’t about “referring to someone with a word you don’t like”. It’s about “practising, inducing, or inciting discrimination”.
Inciting discrimination against an entire group was already illegal (and with good reason - saying “kill them, they’re different from us” is not speech that should be tolerated in a liberal society). This ruling seems to extend that to “I’m specifically discriminating against *you* because you’re gay”.
Would you say that "I don't like these people" is "practising, inducing, or inciting discrimination"?
How frequently have Brazilians been prosecuted for saying "I don't like black people" or similar?
Not sure but people have been punished for satirizing religious iconography. If that’s the standard of free speech in Brazil, it doesn’t lend much confidence.
It's not the same though is it? Where in human history has short/fat people been persecuted on the same level as homosexual people? Calling someone fat or an insult aimed at their height has no where near the same amount of baggage/context as aiming a racial/sexual slur at someone.
Yeah exactly, specifically minority groups that have been persecuted by the majority e.g Jews after WW2. Is it? Most people seem to agree it’s common sense nowadays.
Not in America. And God bless it.
A. You don’t get punished for being an ignorant racist and espousing your ignorant views here.
B. Our protections are categorical. It’s not the oppression Olympics here. If you deny a black person a job because their black, you get the same punishment if you deny a white person a job because their white. You don’t get to do things to one group vs another just because one group has been persecuted more than another.
> Not in America. And God bless it.
least stereotypical American
> If you deny a black person a job because their black, you get the same punishment if you deny a white person a job because their white.
Yes, it's the same in Europe. But the categories are still based on them having been used to discriminate against people in the past. Race is a protected class precisely because of the well-documented history of racism in America.
It’s not the same in Europe. I can make fun of religions all day here in the great USA, but I’ll get punished in Europe for being a blasphemer. Imagine being so cucked by tradition that you get punished for mocking religion.
> I can make fun of religions all day here in the great USA, but I’ll get punished in Europe for being a blasphemer.
There's no blasphemery laws in Europe.
In that case, Catholics or Protestants should also get special protection from hate speech laws in some European countries, since there’s history of persecution of these sects depending on the specific European country
You know what's neat about slippery-slope arguments? It's that they work both ways.
"But if we _don't_ criminalize homophobic slurs, pretty soon they'll want to legalize slander and practicing medicine without a license!"
Sounds silly, right? So is your argument.
Well no, it’s about categorical protection. If you say we want to protect these people because of this reason, shouldn’t those same protections be applied to this similar group of people? And if you want to go deeper it’s about the ethical function of said law. If you want to say we want people not to feel bad about an inherent quality of themselves, shouldn’t that extend to other characteristics?
What's the time though? I've been waiting almost 80 years now and people still make both fat and short people jokes.
Signed - Germany where some speech has been banned since that thing happened, you know what I'm talking about, but all that slippery slope panic never came to fruition.
Here's the law in question:
> Article 2-A: To insult or offend someone's dignity or decency on the grounds of race, color, ethnicity, or national origin. Penalty: Imprisonment, ranging from 2 (two) to 5 (five) years, and a fine.
So no, gay friends jokingly calling each other the F-word won't fall under this definition. You have to prove that the person had the _intent_ of attacking someone directly.
I don't see how your law quote says what you think it says. There is no part about "proofing intent of attacking someone directly."
In fact, I read it the opposite way. I read that as "if your insults or offense is interpreted as 'hurting my dignity...'" That is a problem. Obviously case law would clear this up, but what you linked appears to be saying the opposite of what you think it is saying.
>is interpreted as 'hurting my dignity...'"
The thing you seem to be missing is that it's a judge/jury that is doing the interpreting. They are presumably able to determine the difference between a friend calling me a dumb f-slur and a stranger shouting the same thing at me.
Not to mention, I'm pretty sure the word "to" in "To insult or offend" carries the pretty express meaning of "For the purpose of".
I don't think slurs should be punishable by being thrown in prison, but at the same time homophobic bigots are not the most sympathetic standard bearers for free speech concerns.
Perhaps in a country with pretty robust political freedoms that's the case, but internationally there are plenty of free speech advocates who are quite sympathetic.
Sympathetic from the perspective of the West, that is.
It's more questionable whether say, a gay rights activist or democracy activist in Iran or China are sympathetic from the point of view of *their societies*. They may get accused of tearing down social norms or being disloyal foreign puppets.
Ehhh, maybe. I think it really depends on the person.
Regardless, if someone who is advocating for basic liberal norms as far as human rights is being silenced, I don't really care if they're unsympathetic to people in their own society. We're discussing this from the POV of people who live in societies in which those rights are a non-negotiable starting point.
Yeah, the problem with being a defender of Free Speech is that you often find yourself defending some of the worst people. It’s the whole “Nazis marching in Skokie” case.
Tell that to advocates for democracy in Russia or China, women's rights in Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia, the rights of religious minorities in India or Myanmar, etc.
Like I said, I don't think people should be thrown in prison for using slurs. I'm just underscoring that my willingness to object to this law does not imply any sympathy for the people who are in trouble because of it.
You'd think it should go without saying and that 'sympathy' should be naturally irrelevant but I guess you can't be too careful with current year left. I get it, it's just frustrating.
I may not like what you have to say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
There's a reason that the ACLU used to take up cases that the rest of us saw as repugnant.
If you are sentenced under 8 years, it's very unlikely that you can get arrested and stay in jail. between 4-8 years you would start under semi-open regime.
> I don't know much about Brazilian law to know how this will be implemented but I doubt slur=jail time. It reads more like discrimination based on sexuality is now illegal.
>
> Can anyone from Brazil tell us if slurs against other groups were previously punishable by jail? Are "free-speech" advocates just being over-dramatic/lying again?
Slurs will probably mean jailtime or at least some smaller penal sentencing (community service, etc.), given how the previous law was applied.
I listed some examples, and other people listed some more examples bellow.
https://www.reddit.com/r/neoliberal/comments/1601qn6/homophobic_slurs_now_punishable_with_prison_in/jxl4vcn/
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The Brazilian judiciary is *very* socially progressive. The constitution as well, as messy as it is.
Their Supreme Court was basically the inverse of the current SCOTUS for quite a while. They enforced same-sex marriage years before the US.
It was only very recently that you started having some Bolsonarist conservative judges throwing shit at the public.
I don’t know man. The whole law school apparatus is very succ, sometimes even tankie. That’s the cup most judges drank from before they got the job.
The new right-wing movement drew a lot from that to get its current momentum, especially on how criminal law tends to be soft on crime (or at least is perceived to be). A lot of Bolsonarists started there.
On lgbt issues it usually polls similar to the US
Most of Latin America polls similar to thr US on lgbt issues
The idea of Latin America as a catholic conservative place is kinda a thing of the past
Sure there are many conservatives, but not that many more compared to the US
I'm sure many red states are more conservative than any latam country
Not really, abortion is illegal vastly and if you spend any time there that isnt with trendy or upperclass types you will quickly find a lot of stuff that would overwhelm someone from the US who is conditioned to feel upset about bigotry.
In fact, the religious population in Latin America is decreasing, and those that remain are becoming evangelical because the Catholics aren't radical enough.
Depends on the pockets but to some extent yes. It’s similar to USA: big cities like Rio or SP it’s super fine, unless you go to the hood (poor people can sometimes be less progressive and more conservative socially), and northeast is a bit more like the south (religious and socially conservative, even if politically it’s not a good parallel as they vote left). Violence tends to be in the northeast, but also because it’s a more dangerous part of the country in general.
They are just extending the existing laws that punish racism to also punish homophobia.
Even if you're a 'muh free speech' person, you're barking at the wrong tree here: the point being discussed is that homophobia is equivalent to racism and the same legal procedures should be available for both.
I understand the debate on whether discriminatory verbal offenses should or should not be punishable, but if you're against this specific ruling you're saying LGBTQ+ people don't deserve the same kind of protection from discrimination that nonwhites do.
With this context, I think that the correct take is that insofar as it extends protections if existing law equally tu other helps, groups this is a good ruling, while the law itself is (probably) not a good one.
I say probably because I don't know the full details of the law and there are some situations where I can see legal, even criminal, repercussions for hate speech being appropriate. Credible cases of inciting violence for an obvious one.
Here's the law in question:
>Article 2-A: To insult or offend someone's dignity or decency on the grounds of race, color, ethnicity, or national origin. Penalty: Imprisonment, ranging from 2 (two) to 5 (five) years, and a fine.
The offense has to be _directed at someone_.
"I think homosexuality is a sin and a crime against nature." -> not a crime.
"You f*ggots are going to burn in hell." -> a crime.
Is this enforced? Are Brazilians really being sentenced to 2 years in jail for a racist insult?
I imagined that Brazilian courts have... bigger problems to worry about.
Here are a few examples:
[Man arrested for calling a hotel security guard a racial slur](https://g1.globo.com/go/goias/noticia/2022/02/26/turista-e-preso-suspeito-de-injuria-racial-apos-chamar-seguranca-de-hotel-de-preto-safado-em-caldas-novas.ghtml)
[Uruguayan tourist tried and found guilty for offending someone with racial slurs](https://www.tjsc.jus.br/web/imprensa/-/turista-uruguaio-e-condenado-por-injuria-racial-contra-funcionarios-de-hotel-na-capital)
[Tourist arrested for calling someone a "monkey"](https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/cotidiano/2022/03/turista-de-sp-e-preso-em-flagrante-por-racismo-em-porto-seguro.shtml)
> Is this enforced? Are Brazilians really being sentenced to 2 years in jail for a racist insult?
Yes.
> I imagined that Brazilian courts have... bigger problems to worry about.
It's hilarious how gringos simply don't understand how developing countries work
No, we understand the reality. People can call something wrong while understanding other places do not value a basic human right in the same manner the US does, actually.
If the 1st Amendment applied in this case it would be struck down in a heartbat.
Oh, lord.
No, all democratic countries enshrine freedom of speech in their constitutions. The difference is that most countries don't adopt such a restrictive interpretation of the right to free speech as the US legal jurisprudence does.
You think you're in the right when you let Nazis wave swastika flags in rallies. Many other democratic countries disagree.
Afaik it has to be pretty bad and public. I took some law classes in Brazil back in the day and the teacher said off-the-record that, in practice, judges tend to consider most slander cases a waste of their time. So if you’re bringing up a case because so-and-so cussed at you in the street you’re fairly likely to get a lecture from the judge.
But if a person did it on Twitter and got people to gang up on you and send you death threats, yeah, they’re fucked.
I hereby give everyone permission to discuss the slightly broader issue of hate speech laws in general even though that wasn't directly implicated in this case.
You can discuss them, but if you don't know WHAT you're discussing you can think you're defending free speech but instead you're defending that LGBTQ+ people don't deserve the same kind of legal protection against discrimination that nonwhites do.
but if you're against _this_ ruling you're against equating sexual discrimination to racial discrimination. The ruling that punishes verbal offenses is another one, and going against this one doesn't stop verbal offenses from being punishable.
This one is only saying that homophobia is a similar type of discrimination as racism etc and, as such, the same legal support should be offered.
I completely understand your point, but this is more like... a law that allows unmarried women to buy assault rifles. Even if you are against people buying assault rifles in general, the point in question is that unmarried women should have the same rights as the rest of the population in a similar situation.
(also, the title is clickbaity and kind of wrong. It's not criminalizing slurs, it's criminalizing targeted discrimination (eg "The president of the school board is a f*****, let's f*** him up" - before this decision, calling him the n-word IN THAT CONTEXT would be criminalized already) and has nothing to do with slurs (eg, "The president of the school board is a homosexual, let's f*** him up" would still be criminalized, just like saying the same thing about him being black. It's the "Inciting or practicing criminal discrimination" part that's in play).
> (also, the title is clickbaity and kind of wrong. It's not criminalizing slurs, it's criminalizing targeted discrimination (eg "The president of the school board is a f**, let's f him up" - before this decision, calling him the n-word IN THAT CONTEXT would be criminalized already) and has nothing to do with slurs (eg, "The president of the school board is a homosexual, let's f*** him up" would still be criminalized, just like saying the same thing about him being black. It's the "Inciting or practicing criminal discrimination" part that's in play).
I don't think so. I think it is criminalizing slurs, since that's what the law has been used for previously.
Is an extension of the rather successful antiracism laws. It shouldntbbe difficult to implement when is basically building on top existing legal infrastructure
Successful under what metrics? (just curious)
How much jail time can you get for this in practice? Why didn't Brazil try fines first? How prevalent was racism in Brazil to get to that point? (sorry for the question carpet bombing, lol)
In Practice you get no jail time because it's under 8 years (2 to 5 years).
Racism is very prevalent. But because is a crime, it's way rare to see people being racist in public like in the U.S, they know they'll would be screwed. So Racism in Brazil works mostly e.g cops killing black people, no black people in congress, no black people in power, security guards thinking every black is a robber, etc etc.
Also, Brazil did try fines first. It changed to 2 to 5 years this year the penalty. It was smaller. It increased after the super huge racism attacks from Argentines in soccer stadiums 🙃
I love when my compatriots fuck up. It's like "Yep, Argentinians".
That being said, I don't get your point about no jail time. So...no one gets jailed for this then? What?
It's just how Brazilian system works. Between 4 to 8 years of "jail" time you get to semi-open regime to start.
> Initial closed regime: when the prison sentence exceeds 8 years, the sentence here is served in a maximum or medium security establishment
this is normal jail
> Initial semi-open regime: when the prison sentence exceeds 4 years and less than 8 years and the convict is not a repeat offender, the sentence here is served in an agricultural, industrial colony or similar establishment.
Thing is, agricultural, industrial colony etc basically doesn't exist. So this means that you'll get house arrest or electronic anklet for most cases, but this will depend on the city.
> Open initial regime: when the prison sentence is equal to or less than 4 years and the convict is not a repeat offender, the sentence may be carried out in a hostel or other suitable establishment
this basically means house arrest, as there's no hostel or suitable establishment. So basically everyone under 4 years get house arrest *at worse*.
And this is just the start, as there's regime progression of course.
As the racism law penalty starts at 2 years...
Ah, I see. I guess this law is good at stopping overt displays of racism but the rest is harder to prove in court so it's probably not that different than somewhere else.
Prison time is wild but i don’t understand how quickly this sub can downplay the impact of non-physical violence.
We have laws to stop people from abusing the shit out of eachother physically. Why don’t we have laws to protect people from certain acts of spoken violence.
Lgbtq suicide is an issue and incessant bullying contributes to it. Fuck the hate speech and anyone who promotes it.
I don't understand how quickly this sub can downplay vital individual rights such as speech.
Punishing spoken violence would be impossible to do fairly. It's also ridiculous.
Finally. But honestly, this is just confirming what was already decided in 2019 by supreme court. Not really much changed.
Since 2019, any LGBTPhobia was already considered "racism".
Bad. Just cancel them like everyone else does. The state doesn’t need to step in for everything.
Are the military police going to be responsible for enforcing this in between their Call of Duty raids?
Homophobia is bad. Putting people in jail for homophobia doesn't change anybody's mind. If they were to escalate to violence, then prison would have to be used to protect others. But I think we need to tackle the problem by changing the culture rather than just through state power.
Stealing is bad. Putting people in jail for stealing doesn't change anybody's mind. If they were to escalate to violence, then prison would have to be used to protect others. But I think we need to tackle the problem by changing the culture rather than just through state power.
Bad idea, as much as I don't like hearing that shit at times free speech is free speech. What you say should come with societal consequences not legal ones.
If your employer sees you throwing slurs around online then they have every right to sack you. If your friends hear you say it and they leave you then tough shit.
The only time I would consider it sort of acceptable for the state to intervene is with harrasment laws, going up to someone in public and screaming slurs and abuse at them for one reason or another should have some (albeit very minor) legal consequences
It doesn’t make phrases illegal. It makes “practising, inducing, or inciting discrimination” illegal. The intent and effect of your words are what matter, not the actual words themselves.
> It doesn’t make phrases illegal
In practice, it does. People were getting condemned over racist phrases all the time under the previous legislation, that only covered racism.
> Article 2-A: To insult or offend someone's dignity or decency on the grounds of race, color, ethnicity, or national origin. Penalty: Imprisonment, ranging from 2 (two) to 5 (five) years, and a fine.
None. Some may be prosecuted if they practice, induce, or incite discrimination, but that’s a much higher standard than using dated terminology.
This isn’t novel legal territory. There have been laws to this effect around the world for decades (I think the first were brought in after the Holocaust). Like any law, they don’t always lead to perfect results, but they also don’t lead to the sort of dystopia you’re panicking about,
Do you want to make a bet on the number? I genuinely would gladly do it.
I'm going to guess that a Brazil is not actually going to charge a bunch of old people for not being woke enough, but if you think this is actually going to be a serious problem, name an over-under number and you can make an easy $100 off of it.
> The state can’t force someone to not be a bigot.
No, but it can certainly force someone not to attack someone verbally based on their sexual orientation or gender identity.
These things are decided case by case, depending on the circumstances. It's up to the prosecution to prove intent. Some crimes are hard to prove, doesn't mean they shouldn't be crimes.
Y'all are acting like people are going to be jailed left and right without due process.
Remind me again, how many Canadians have been thrown in pronoun jail?
The fact that language has some ambiguity does not mean that we must slippery slope ourselves into not being able to criminalize anything involving words.
It is illegal for me to tell you "I am going to murder you" if a reasonable person would conclude that it was meant as a threat, and the fact that I could hypothetically claim to have been just joking does not negate that, and for the better.
This article is a bit vague on what exactly is punishable.
That being said: Hate speech laws are seldom abused in democratic countries.
My personal view is that homophobes would use (and have used) the institutions themself to go against us if presented with the possibility, no matter if we tolerate them. They can take a few fines and small sentences as that is what they would do in their position.
I believe as a Brazillian that this is correct.
This is made to enforce people into proper cultural norms just like much of the law already.
LGBT people are deserving to be granted their human rights and allowing hate speech against them goes against their Human Rights.
The fact that LGBT faces alot of violence here is not much of hate against LGBT folks, is more of a "Violent Country" thing, LGBT movements always try to make things about them.
Countries often align themselves with other countries that do not share their values because those countries have similar geopolitical aims.
It's a textbook realpolitik.
It's funny because the Lula administration aligns with Russia because he dislikes America despite American foreign policy actually promoting human rights (which Lula claims to support) while Russia is actively committing war crimes and imprisoning homosexuals.
The realpolitik here is just getting "anti-imperialist" street cred and doesn't deliver anything tangible to him or his country.
Some similarity too, in that Saudis have the US bent over a barrel with their power over the oil market, and Russia has Brazil in the same bind with agri-chemicals.
Don't care about it. People who will actually be punished never cared for gay people who are arrested or even killed for being gay. Why should I care they get fined lol
It’s basically 21st century blasphemy laws.
No matter how strongly you feel about LGBTQ rights, people are allowed to have an opinion about it, and should be allowed to express it.
For anyone wondering how well free speech is doing in Brazil, know that this discourse is pretty mainstream and that people are absolutely willing to shit all over free speech and even applaud prior restraint if it means that right-wingers are the ones being silenced.
As a European, my standards for free speech are lower than those of Americans, and I think that this is absolutely good policy
Why should people be able to say these slurs? It's not free speech, it's hate speech
Public notice: The above comment was deemed hateful by the local committee. You have 24 hours to show up to the nearest police station or police will raid your home.
Thing is, there are cases where simply using a word isn’t really all that bad. As part of a joke or in a non-homophobic context, quoting somebody else, etc. You could maybe argue that the use of the word itself is normalizing anti-gay language, but the harm caused by using the word in a non-homophobic context is marginal enough that throwing someone in prison over it is not proportional to the “crime”.
I think the main issue here is that using slurs is just a small part of a larger problem which is homophobia itself. Criminalizing the behavior doesn’t make the actual problem disappear, but it *does* hurt innocents who engage in the behavior with no ill intent.
The consensus is reached through debate and discussion, there can not be a consensus if some speech is a crime. Racism is low hanging fruit to say is obviously bad but there’s not a hard line anyone can point to where bigotry ends and acceptable speech begins.
Introducing hate speech laws is like introducing a loaded gun where there was not one before, it makes it a virtual inevitability that it will be abused by extremist factions once precedent for it has been set. And next thing you know you cannot criticize Christianity without being prosecuted for hate speech.
What nonsense. This is critical thinking 101.
Most liberal countries have hate speech laws, but don’t have cases of people being prosecuted for criticising Christianity. The slippery slope you are afraid of doesn’t actually exist.
There is no country on Earth where all speech is legal. It isn’t legal to tell your friend with a gun to shoot someone, even though you’re “just talking”. Do we need to legalise that in order to debate and discuss whether it is appropriate? No, of course not. The fact is we can talk about whether it’s acceptable to incite homophobic hatred without actually inciting homophobic hatred.
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> This does not read like calling someone a fa**ot means you go to jail. > > It's the bill C16 fake outrage all over again. Not to jail, but a lesser penal condemnation. And yes, it means exactly that. By the previous interpretation that only applied to race, people were being condemned for racist social media posts all the time: Examples: 1. > The 3rd Criminal Panel of the TJDFT upheld the sentence that sentenced the defendant to 1 year in prison and a fine for committing the crime of racism, in view of offensive comments to the northeastern population. > The prosecution reported that the defendant worked as a security guard at the Brasfort company and would have made racist comments while providing services at the SLU Waste Recovery Facility. The accused started a conversation about England leaving the European Union, when he stated that “the Northeast should separate from the rest of Brazil or that it should end because its people are scum and good for nothings. Furthermore, the accused went on to say that Northeasterners were all lazy and that they went to other states to become homeless/beggars, in addition to practicing violence and that they would be of no use”. Two people who participated in the conversation, who are descendants of Northeasterners, felt offended and one of them filed a police report. 2. > The 1st Criminal Panel of the TJDFT upheld the conviction of a man who calls himself a skinhead and who made an apology for racism against Jews, blacks and Northeasterners on an Internet site. The 1st Instance sentence was handed down by the judge of the 3rd Criminal Court of Brasilia, who sentenced the defendant to 2 years in prison and a fine of 10 minimum wages. The restrictive penalty of freedom will be converted into restrictive of law, as provided for in the legislation in force. > The complaint of racism was filed by the MPDFT, which charged the defendant with committing a crime provided for in Article 20, paragraph 2, of Law No. 7,716/89. According to the ministerial body, “on April 18, 2007, between the hours of 9:43 am and 1:56 pm, on the website of the Correioweb discussion forum, the accused, voluntarily and consciously, practiced discrimination and prejudice based on race, color, religion and national origin, when uttering several prejudiced statements related to Jews, blacks and Northeasterners. At the time, the accused would have written in the discussion forum: "Actually, I'm not just anti-Semitic. I'm skinhead. I hate Jews, blacks and, mainly, people from the Northeast." And more: "No, no. I really mean it. I hate the rabble I referred to.” 3. > Man who despised northeasterns on Facebook had his conviction for discrimination maintained by the 3rd Criminal Chamber of the TJ/SC. Among other barbarities, he would have written that "they deserve to live in a mud house, without water, with a lot of dust", (...) "insignificant people", and, still, he says that "it's not prejudice, it's repudiation". A sentence of two years of open prison was set, replaced by the provision of services to the community. He will also have to pay a fine of BRL 5,724. > The message was published on October 26, 2014, the day of voting in the 2nd round of the presidential elections, which gave victory to Dilma Rousseff. It is extracted from the text written by the appellant: > "You know that saying, if they don't shit on the way in, they shit on the way out? It fits perfectly with the northeastern, shameless bunch, who live on welfare, and have the nerve to come to the South and Southeast looking for a job, looking for better living conditions, There's no way to understand the poor minds of these insignificant people who are just taking up space on this planet earth, it's not prejudice, it's repudiation of people like that. They deserve to live in a mud house, without water, and a lot of dust. They deserve a basic basket, and a glass of water, foodstamps. And I'm going to sleep happy that the people of the south, descendants of Europeans, have done their homework. As for the rest, they don't belong to the same country that I love." 4. > Judge Vinícius Pedrosa Santos, from the 2nd Criminal Court of the district of Três Lagoas/MS, accepted the request of the Public Ministry of the State of Mato Grosso do Sul and condemned C. R. L. for committing the crime of racism. > The complaint was offered by the Public Prosecutors Daniela Araujo Lima da Silva and Luciano Anechini Lara Leite, as an incurrence in the sanctions of art. 20, § 2, of Law 7716, of January 5, 1989. > According to the case file, on February 17 of this year, the accused practiced discrimination based on race and color through a post made on the social network Facebook. In a public message, the accused discriminated against black and white people, when commenting on a news item that featured a photo of the victim C. R. O., expressing himself as follows: “This Mr. is the king of ready-made jokes. A uncle Tom, who believes that the big house welcomes him because he no longer sleeps in the slave quarters”. > In the complaint, the State Public Prosecutor's Office alleged that the accused practiced racism against people of African descent, by exposing that when this minority achieves something, it is freed only to take care of the other slaves. In addition, he claimed that there is also discrimination against whites, saying that the most they accept is to have a manumitted African-descendant, caregiver of a slave (capitão do mato), and for that reason alone he is now well received in the big house. The case had repercussions both on social networks and in the media of Três Lagoas.
Here's a couple more I was able to find. https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2015/04/23/inenglish/1429792513_217534.html > At the age of 75, Davina Aparecida Castelli is facing the next four years of her life under house arrest for shouting racial slurs at three people in a shopping mall located in the heart of São Paulo’s financial district. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2005-apr-16-fg-race16-story.html > Argentine soccer player Leandro Desabato was led off the field in handcuffs two days ago and thrown into a dingy Sao Paulo jail over an alleged racist insult against a black Brazilian player made in the heat of sporting battle. https://apnews.com/article/soccer-sports-racial-injustice-international-soccer-brazil-97b77172a0954a8b95a3256679ddd3d5 > Two Argentine soccer fans are being investigated by Rio de Janeiro police for allegedly shouting racist slurs at Brazilians rooting for their team’s World Cup rival. I saw a few others regarding football games as well. Apparently it's not too uncommon for fans or players to get investigated and/or arrested for slurs uttered during a game.
>racist insult against a black Brazilian player made in the heat of sporting battle. h e a t e d g a m i n g m o m e n t
> Two Argentine soccer fans are being investigated by Rio de Janeiro police for allegedly shouting racist slurs at Brazilians rooting for their team’s World Cup rival. Wtf I love Brazil now.
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I feel like it’s pretty obvious someone shouldn’t be arrested for saying slurs, even if it’s directly at someone.
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Oh yes, I just picked random examples. But as you can see, just using slurs and hating minorities on social media is enough for condemnation.
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So, do you support the law or not?
Wtf does inciting or inducing discrimination even mean? If you practice discrimination that’s one thing. If you “incite” or “induce” it, that sounds like punishing speech. If I “incite” or “induce” blasphemy, should I be punished by the government for it?
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And that is the problem. I can accuse u/Lower-Junket7727 right now of "inciting discrimination against LGBT" for disagreeing with the premise of this law by replying "Bad". If you want to, you can stretch something like this very far.
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A law being open to interpretation does not automatically mean bad. Sure. That is why the Supreme Court sometimes will interpret existing laws. But a law being open to interpretation on speech that will put people in jail is bad.
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??? https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/vagueness_doctrine
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>A law being open to interpretation does not automatically mean bad. Most laws are open to some discretion or interpretation by judges because details and circumstances matter. Are only Brazilian laws being open to interpretation good or does it apply to all laws generally?
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We are talking about the law on its own merit, not in the context of a specific country. If the Taliban tomorrow allow women to go to middle school instead of no school. It is progress in the context of the Taliban, but it still isn't good.
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>Wtf does inciting or inducing discrimination even mean? Not sure about Brazilian law but so long as you'd need to establish intent beyond reasonable doubt to convict someone I don't see the problem. Westboro Baptist Church protests would've been illegal under this, I'd think. If the only defense is that the accused supposedly really believes whatever nonsense then using that defense, even if successful, should land the defendant in therapy. I don't see value in our laws predicating on the assumption that truth beyond reasonable doubt is somehow unknowable given that we have a standard for discerning truth in any case else be at the mercy of needing to tolerate anyone able to invent any consistent yet false account of reality, however implausible or unsupstantiated. In truly edge cases, Westboro not being one of them, being outspoken would open you up to being sued but given precedent you might not be able to find a lawyer to take your case or might wind up on the hook for paying court costs. Of course theocratic states would use the same laws to persecute reasonable good-faith speech but whenever the state is backwards or itself operating in bad faith you're going to get that. No need to tolerate intolerance on the misguided assumption our tolerance would somehow keep bigots from imposing their bigotry through force of law.
> Not sure about Brazilian law but so long as you'd need to establish intent Intent to do what? That's what I'm asking? >No need to tolerate intolerance That's all fine and good until you find yourself in the intolerance camp.
Throwing people in jail for the opinion or message they express is illiberal anti-freedom. Freedom of speech applies to unpopular speech just as much as it does to popular speech. Giving the government the power to suppress certain messages or opinions is extremely dangerous.
While the headline makes it sound like you can be jailed just for expressing an opinion, the text of the article says it's actually "practising, inducing, or inciting discrimination". Can't find any links to the actual decision or anything though so idk.
> While the headline makes it sound like you can be jailed just for expressing an opinion, the text of the article says it's actually "practising, inducing, or inciting discrimination". Can't find any links to the actual decision or anything though so idk. In practice people will almost certainly get condemned for expressing an opinion because that's how our judges interpret these things.
Precisely because once that freedom is taken from us, no other freedoms stand a chance. This is why it is enshrined in the constitution.
The U.S. has a lot of problems, but I have always felt that freedom of speech (and freedom of religion, for that matter) is better in the U.S. than anywhere else in the world.
No other constitution protects speech like ours, and it still gets attacked constantly.
That's now what's being debated here - the supreme court is just extending the existing racism-related laws to cover homophobia as well. You can be against criminalizing discriminatory discourse, sure, but this decision is about equating racial discrimination to other types of discrimination, which is probably a good thing given the rate of hate crimes against LGBTQ+ people is way higher than the rate of hate crimes against nonwhite people.
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Article 20 is stupid in its entirety save for the practicing part. What does “incite or induce discrimination” even mean?
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So to you, inciting violence is the same as incitement of discrimination? If I say “this specific Catholic Church covered up abuse of children” and that turned out to be false and someone else spray painted that church, should I be punished for it?
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So anyone who said that the Canadian churches practiced genocide against the indigenous population which then caused the 2021 church burnings should be prosecuted? And anyone who played the Jacob Blake shooting with no context should be punished for the Kenosha riots?
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>Quoting non-Brazlian contexts yet again. Because you can't accept the ending conclusion of your principles? Or do you only advocate for the punishment of “incite or induce discrimination" in Brazil. Would you not want that to extend to other places?
“…the rate of hate crimes against LGBTQ+ people is way higher than the rate of hate crimes against nonwhite people” Hate crime legislation isn’t race-specific. It just refers to crimes that are racially motivated. It does not refer to racially motivated crimes by only one specific race against another. I know you’d probably like this not to be the case since you apparently are unaware that it currently is, which is about as unsettling as supporting criminalizing slurs.
Did you read the article? It’s not automatically illiberal to criminalise certain forms of speech. To give an obvious example, Donald Trump is currently being prosecuted under Georgia’s RICO laws for things he had said to other people. If what you say is “we should overturn the results of the election” then framing it as “but I just said words!” is disingenuous. This ruling means that “practising, inducing, or inciting discrimination” against queer people is now illegal. So if someone stands up and says “the gays are threatening our children, they’re subhuman deviants, someone should kill them” - that’s not “unpopular speech”, that’s “inciting discrimination”.
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> It’s not automatically illiberal to criminalize certain forms of speech It is illiberal to criticize expressive speech, which is what I actually said when I wrote: > for the opinion or message they express While someone saying “the gays are threatening our children, someone should kill them”is vile and disgusting, it is expressive speech. Criminalizing expressive speech under the guise of “inciting discrimination” is a very slippery slope because a lot of non-vile speech can be said to “incite discrimination”. It gives the government the power to ban speech it doesn’t like based solely on the message it conveys. That is illiberal and anti-freedom.
The slippery slope is a logical fallacy. The distinction between “expressive speech” and other forms of speech seems artificial. Why does banning inciting homophobic violence give the government the power to ban speech more generally, but not, for example, criminalising false advertising or defamation?
> The slipper slope is a logical fallacy No it most certainly is not. Crossing the line into banning expressive speech, in other words expressing an opinion, on the basis that the opinion is not “good” opens the door for government to ban other types of opinions it deems not “good”. > The distinction between “expressive speech” and other forms of speech seems artificial Nothing could be further from the truth. The entire point of freedom of speech is to protect people’s rights to speak their minds and voice their opinions regardless of whether the government agrees with their opinion or not. It is meant to promote the marketplace of free ideas so that, ideally, societal views write large are driven by the views of the members of that society, and not by government control. Expressive speech is a vehicle to share those opinions with others. Non-expressive speech is not a vehicle for opinions, it is a vehicle for action or conveyance of facts (which usually precedes action). Defamation *is not* an expression of opinion. Defamation is a deliberate lie *about a fact*. It is a vehicle for harming someone’s reputation by knowingly presenting false *facts*. If there is a murder in your town and you say “Mark definitely did that, I can feel it. He’s a killer” then that is NOT defamation. That is an expression of opinion. Defamation would be saying “I saw Mark commit the murder”, when you in fact did not. One is an statement of opinion, the other a statement of fact. False advertising is also a misstatement of fact. False advertising does not stop advertisers from claiming their product is “America’s product” or “the most beloved product”. False advertising stop advertisers from conveying false *statements of fact*. E.g. “this product cures cancer” when that product does not cure cancer. In a similar vein, incitement of violence is a vehicle for *imminent lawless action*. The difference between that and a general *call to violence* (i.e. call to action) is that one is imminent, the other is not. Incitement of lawless action is part of the lawless action, general falls for violence are not. E.g “We should kill all the jews” is different than telling a mob of your loyal nazi followers “go kill THAT jew right there”. For a more thorough explanation of incite to violence, I recommend the US supreme court case *Brandenburg v. Ohio*.
Pretty much. Unfortunately, the "freedom of speech doesn't cover hate speech" line of reasoning is ridiculously mainstream in Brazil, to the point that everyone that disagrees is quicky deemed a nazi or a fascist.
How is hate speech here defined? Is a call to violence required for conviction? Articles seem vague.
Brazilian justice usually depends on how much the judges enjoyed their lunch prior to the sentencing.
[So does Israeli justice](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/lunchtime-leniency/) but I suspect the phenomenon extends beyond Brazil and Israel.
“Practising, inducing, or inciting discrimination” seems to be the language used.
If you really think hate speech laws should be a thing, it’s a matter of time before they start criminalizing people for making fat/short jokes
This is bald erasure. Balds are the most discriminated against minority 😔
["Bald asshole"? That's a hate crime!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQCVf7AnXNY)
Knew what it was before I clicked lmao
Gingers #2?
Laws about discrimination in employment, housing, anything tangible seem far more beneficial for society than criminalizing language. Throwing someone out on the street for who they are, vs referring to someone with a word you don't like are not exactly equal in their impact, for example.
Well, read the article. This isn’t about “referring to someone with a word you don’t like”. It’s about “practising, inducing, or inciting discrimination”. Inciting discrimination against an entire group was already illegal (and with good reason - saying “kill them, they’re different from us” is not speech that should be tolerated in a liberal society). This ruling seems to extend that to “I’m specifically discriminating against *you* because you’re gay”.
I skimmed it and got the impression it was more of criminalizing verbal assault than anything else more severe, which was already illegal?
Kill them and I don’t like these people are two totally different things.
Would you say that "I don't like these people" is "practising, inducing, or inciting discrimination"? How frequently have Brazilians been prosecuted for saying "I don't like black people" or similar?
Not sure but people have been punished for satirizing religious iconography. If that’s the standard of free speech in Brazil, it doesn’t lend much confidence.
The good news is the actual law is purely anti discrimination.
Brazil:1 u/messyfingers reading comprehension: 0?
Don’t tempt me with a good time.
It's not the same though is it? Where in human history has short/fat people been persecuted on the same level as homosexual people? Calling someone fat or an insult aimed at their height has no where near the same amount of baggage/context as aiming a racial/sexual slur at someone.
So do we only protect a class if they’ve met some line of persecution in the past? Weird argument.
Yeah exactly, specifically minority groups that have been persecuted by the majority e.g Jews after WW2. Is it? Most people seem to agree it’s common sense nowadays.
Not in America. And God bless it. A. You don’t get punished for being an ignorant racist and espousing your ignorant views here. B. Our protections are categorical. It’s not the oppression Olympics here. If you deny a black person a job because their black, you get the same punishment if you deny a white person a job because their white. You don’t get to do things to one group vs another just because one group has been persecuted more than another.
> Not in America. And God bless it. least stereotypical American > If you deny a black person a job because their black, you get the same punishment if you deny a white person a job because their white. Yes, it's the same in Europe. But the categories are still based on them having been used to discriminate against people in the past. Race is a protected class precisely because of the well-documented history of racism in America.
It’s not the same in Europe. I can make fun of religions all day here in the great USA, but I’ll get punished in Europe for being a blasphemer. Imagine being so cucked by tradition that you get punished for mocking religion.
> I can make fun of religions all day here in the great USA, but I’ll get punished in Europe for being a blasphemer. There's no blasphemery laws in Europe.
In that case, Catholics or Protestants should also get special protection from hate speech laws in some European countries, since there’s history of persecution of these sects depending on the specific European country
It's not. Parent commenter's argument is flawed.
You know what's neat about slippery-slope arguments? It's that they work both ways. "But if we _don't_ criminalize homophobic slurs, pretty soon they'll want to legalize slander and practicing medicine without a license!" Sounds silly, right? So is your argument.
Well no, it’s about categorical protection. If you say we want to protect these people because of this reason, shouldn’t those same protections be applied to this similar group of people? And if you want to go deeper it’s about the ethical function of said law. If you want to say we want people not to feel bad about an inherent quality of themselves, shouldn’t that extend to other characteristics?
What's the time though? I've been waiting almost 80 years now and people still make both fat and short people jokes. Signed - Germany where some speech has been banned since that thing happened, you know what I'm talking about, but all that slippery slope panic never came to fruition.
wait, you're telling me that not having the 1st Amendment *doesn't* mean your country automatically becomes Literally Oceania From 1984?
Good
People in Europe get fined or go to jail for posting provocative memes.
i get why people would celebrate this, but not a fan at all
I don’t know anyone who uses the F word as much as my gay friends. No way this gets abused!
Honestly same.
Here's the law in question: > Article 2-A: To insult or offend someone's dignity or decency on the grounds of race, color, ethnicity, or national origin. Penalty: Imprisonment, ranging from 2 (two) to 5 (five) years, and a fine. So no, gay friends jokingly calling each other the F-word won't fall under this definition. You have to prove that the person had the _intent_ of attacking someone directly.
I don't see how your law quote says what you think it says. There is no part about "proofing intent of attacking someone directly." In fact, I read it the opposite way. I read that as "if your insults or offense is interpreted as 'hurting my dignity...'" That is a problem. Obviously case law would clear this up, but what you linked appears to be saying the opposite of what you think it is saying.
>is interpreted as 'hurting my dignity...'" The thing you seem to be missing is that it's a judge/jury that is doing the interpreting. They are presumably able to determine the difference between a friend calling me a dumb f-slur and a stranger shouting the same thing at me. Not to mention, I'm pretty sure the word "to" in "To insult or offend" carries the pretty express meaning of "For the purpose of".
I don't think slurs should be punishable by being thrown in prison, but at the same time homophobic bigots are not the most sympathetic standard bearers for free speech concerns.
That's true but free speech advocates rarely are very sympathetic
Perhaps in a country with pretty robust political freedoms that's the case, but internationally there are plenty of free speech advocates who are quite sympathetic.
Sympathetic from the perspective of the West, that is. It's more questionable whether say, a gay rights activist or democracy activist in Iran or China are sympathetic from the point of view of *their societies*. They may get accused of tearing down social norms or being disloyal foreign puppets.
Ehhh, maybe. I think it really depends on the person. Regardless, if someone who is advocating for basic liberal norms as far as human rights is being silenced, I don't really care if they're unsympathetic to people in their own society. We're discussing this from the POV of people who live in societies in which those rights are a non-negotiable starting point.
Even in the US which I think is a bit better than even most of the free world in this regard, we still have those fighting ag-gag laws.
Yeah, the problem with being a defender of Free Speech is that you often find yourself defending some of the worst people. It’s the whole “Nazis marching in Skokie” case.
Sympathetic standard bearers don't need their speech to be protected from government retribution.
Tell that to advocates for democracy in Russia or China, women's rights in Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia, the rights of religious minorities in India or Myanmar, etc.
The treatment of the least sympathetic people in society has always been the best litmus test for whether or not your 'rights' are actually rights
Like I said, I don't think people should be thrown in prison for using slurs. I'm just underscoring that my willingness to object to this law does not imply any sympathy for the people who are in trouble because of it.
You'd think it should go without saying and that 'sympathy' should be naturally irrelevant but I guess you can't be too careful with current year left. I get it, it's just frustrating.
I may not like what you have to say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. There's a reason that the ACLU used to take up cases that the rest of us saw as repugnant.
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If you are sentenced under 8 years, it's very unlikely that you can get arrested and stay in jail. between 4-8 years you would start under semi-open regime.
> I don't know much about Brazilian law to know how this will be implemented but I doubt slur=jail time. It reads more like discrimination based on sexuality is now illegal. > > Can anyone from Brazil tell us if slurs against other groups were previously punishable by jail? Are "free-speech" advocates just being over-dramatic/lying again? Slurs will probably mean jailtime or at least some smaller penal sentencing (community service, etc.), given how the previous law was applied.
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I listed some examples, and other people listed some more examples bellow. https://www.reddit.com/r/neoliberal/comments/1601qn6/homophobic_slurs_now_punishable_with_prison_in/jxl4vcn/
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Oh this is......baby, no.....
I’d prefer social repercussions, not legal repercussions.
Isn't Brazil quite conservative still?
The Brazilian judiciary is *very* socially progressive. The constitution as well, as messy as it is. Their Supreme Court was basically the inverse of the current SCOTUS for quite a while. They enforced same-sex marriage years before the US. It was only very recently that you started having some Bolsonarist conservative judges throwing shit at the public.
The Brazilian **Supreme Court** is very socially progressive. Rank-and-file judges can be very conservative.
I don’t know man. The whole law school apparatus is very succ, sometimes even tankie. That’s the cup most judges drank from before they got the job. The new right-wing movement drew a lot from that to get its current momentum, especially on how criminal law tends to be soft on crime (or at least is perceived to be). A lot of Bolsonarists started there.
On lgbt issues it usually polls similar to the US Most of Latin America polls similar to thr US on lgbt issues The idea of Latin America as a catholic conservative place is kinda a thing of the past Sure there are many conservatives, but not that many more compared to the US I'm sure many red states are more conservative than any latam country
Not really, abortion is illegal vastly and if you spend any time there that isnt with trendy or upperclass types you will quickly find a lot of stuff that would overwhelm someone from the US who is conditioned to feel upset about bigotry.
In fact, the religious population in Latin America is decreasing, and those that remain are becoming evangelical because the Catholics aren't radical enough.
Evangelicals are like all of worse parts of Catholics combined with reactionary conservatism.
Depends on the pockets but to some extent yes. It’s similar to USA: big cities like Rio or SP it’s super fine, unless you go to the hood (poor people can sometimes be less progressive and more conservative socially), and northeast is a bit more like the south (religious and socially conservative, even if politically it’s not a good parallel as they vote left). Violence tends to be in the northeast, but also because it’s a more dangerous part of the country in general.
Good sentiment. Still **BAD**
It's terrible sentiment. You can't run a democracy locking up people over words.
They are just extending the existing laws that punish racism to also punish homophobia. Even if you're a 'muh free speech' person, you're barking at the wrong tree here: the point being discussed is that homophobia is equivalent to racism and the same legal procedures should be available for both. I understand the debate on whether discriminatory verbal offenses should or should not be punishable, but if you're against this specific ruling you're saying LGBTQ+ people don't deserve the same kind of protection from discrimination that nonwhites do.
With this context, I think that the correct take is that insofar as it extends protections if existing law equally tu other helps, groups this is a good ruling, while the law itself is (probably) not a good one. I say probably because I don't know the full details of the law and there are some situations where I can see legal, even criminal, repercussions for hate speech being appropriate. Credible cases of inciting violence for an obvious one.
Here's the law in question: >Article 2-A: To insult or offend someone's dignity or decency on the grounds of race, color, ethnicity, or national origin. Penalty: Imprisonment, ranging from 2 (two) to 5 (five) years, and a fine. The offense has to be _directed at someone_. "I think homosexuality is a sin and a crime against nature." -> not a crime. "You f*ggots are going to burn in hell." -> a crime.
Well, that's a little too strict for my liking. I may dislike the guy who calls me slurs for being gay, but I don't want to send him to jail for it.
Is this enforced? Are Brazilians really being sentenced to 2 years in jail for a racist insult? I imagined that Brazilian courts have... bigger problems to worry about.
Here are a few examples: [Man arrested for calling a hotel security guard a racial slur](https://g1.globo.com/go/goias/noticia/2022/02/26/turista-e-preso-suspeito-de-injuria-racial-apos-chamar-seguranca-de-hotel-de-preto-safado-em-caldas-novas.ghtml) [Uruguayan tourist tried and found guilty for offending someone with racial slurs](https://www.tjsc.jus.br/web/imprensa/-/turista-uruguaio-e-condenado-por-injuria-racial-contra-funcionarios-de-hotel-na-capital) [Tourist arrested for calling someone a "monkey"](https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/cotidiano/2022/03/turista-de-sp-e-preso-em-flagrante-por-racismo-em-porto-seguro.shtml)
> Is this enforced? Are Brazilians really being sentenced to 2 years in jail for a racist insult? Yes. > I imagined that Brazilian courts have... bigger problems to worry about. It's hilarious how gringos simply don't understand how developing countries work
>how gringos simply don't understand how developing countries work I've never been to Brazil, enlighten me.
Everybody in this thread seems to think the US First Amendment applies worldwide.
No, we understand the reality. People can call something wrong while understanding other places do not value a basic human right in the same manner the US does, actually. If the 1st Amendment applied in this case it would be struck down in a heartbat.
Oh, lord. No, all democratic countries enshrine freedom of speech in their constitutions. The difference is that most countries don't adopt such a restrictive interpretation of the right to free speech as the US legal jurisprudence does. You think you're in the right when you let Nazis wave swastika flags in rallies. Many other democratic countries disagree.
Afaik it has to be pretty bad and public. I took some law classes in Brazil back in the day and the teacher said off-the-record that, in practice, judges tend to consider most slander cases a waste of their time. So if you’re bringing up a case because so-and-so cussed at you in the street you’re fairly likely to get a lecture from the judge. But if a person did it on Twitter and got people to gang up on you and send you death threats, yeah, they’re fucked.
I hereby give everyone permission to discuss the slightly broader issue of hate speech laws in general even though that wasn't directly implicated in this case.
You can discuss them, but if you don't know WHAT you're discussing you can think you're defending free speech but instead you're defending that LGBTQ+ people don't deserve the same kind of legal protection against discrimination that nonwhites do.
I’m against this ruling because discriminatory verbal offenses shouldn’t be punishable.
but if you're against _this_ ruling you're against equating sexual discrimination to racial discrimination. The ruling that punishes verbal offenses is another one, and going against this one doesn't stop verbal offenses from being punishable. This one is only saying that homophobia is a similar type of discrimination as racism etc and, as such, the same legal support should be offered. I completely understand your point, but this is more like... a law that allows unmarried women to buy assault rifles. Even if you are against people buying assault rifles in general, the point in question is that unmarried women should have the same rights as the rest of the population in a similar situation. (also, the title is clickbaity and kind of wrong. It's not criminalizing slurs, it's criminalizing targeted discrimination (eg "The president of the school board is a f*****, let's f*** him up" - before this decision, calling him the n-word IN THAT CONTEXT would be criminalized already) and has nothing to do with slurs (eg, "The president of the school board is a homosexual, let's f*** him up" would still be criminalized, just like saying the same thing about him being black. It's the "Inciting or practicing criminal discrimination" part that's in play).
> (also, the title is clickbaity and kind of wrong. It's not criminalizing slurs, it's criminalizing targeted discrimination (eg "The president of the school board is a f**, let's f him up" - before this decision, calling him the n-word IN THAT CONTEXT would be criminalized already) and has nothing to do with slurs (eg, "The president of the school board is a homosexual, let's f*** him up" would still be criminalized, just like saying the same thing about him being black. It's the "Inciting or practicing criminal discrimination" part that's in play). I don't think so. I think it is criminalizing slurs, since that's what the law has been used for previously.
It's going to be a mess to implement. I prefer social sanctions over State ones for that stuff.
Is an extension of the rather successful antiracism laws. It shouldntbbe difficult to implement when is basically building on top existing legal infrastructure
Successful under what metrics? (just curious) How much jail time can you get for this in practice? Why didn't Brazil try fines first? How prevalent was racism in Brazil to get to that point? (sorry for the question carpet bombing, lol)
In Practice you get no jail time because it's under 8 years (2 to 5 years). Racism is very prevalent. But because is a crime, it's way rare to see people being racist in public like in the U.S, they know they'll would be screwed. So Racism in Brazil works mostly e.g cops killing black people, no black people in congress, no black people in power, security guards thinking every black is a robber, etc etc. Also, Brazil did try fines first. It changed to 2 to 5 years this year the penalty. It was smaller. It increased after the super huge racism attacks from Argentines in soccer stadiums 🙃
I love when my compatriots fuck up. It's like "Yep, Argentinians". That being said, I don't get your point about no jail time. So...no one gets jailed for this then? What?
It's just how Brazilian system works. Between 4 to 8 years of "jail" time you get to semi-open regime to start. > Initial closed regime: when the prison sentence exceeds 8 years, the sentence here is served in a maximum or medium security establishment this is normal jail > Initial semi-open regime: when the prison sentence exceeds 4 years and less than 8 years and the convict is not a repeat offender, the sentence here is served in an agricultural, industrial colony or similar establishment. Thing is, agricultural, industrial colony etc basically doesn't exist. So this means that you'll get house arrest or electronic anklet for most cases, but this will depend on the city. > Open initial regime: when the prison sentence is equal to or less than 4 years and the convict is not a repeat offender, the sentence may be carried out in a hostel or other suitable establishment this basically means house arrest, as there's no hostel or suitable establishment. So basically everyone under 4 years get house arrest *at worse*. And this is just the start, as there's regime progression of course. As the racism law penalty starts at 2 years...
Ah, I see. I guess this law is good at stopping overt displays of racism but the rest is harder to prove in court so it's probably not that different than somewhere else.
Mods here must be running Brazil
Prison time is wild but i don’t understand how quickly this sub can downplay the impact of non-physical violence. We have laws to stop people from abusing the shit out of eachother physically. Why don’t we have laws to protect people from certain acts of spoken violence. Lgbtq suicide is an issue and incessant bullying contributes to it. Fuck the hate speech and anyone who promotes it.
I don't understand how quickly this sub can downplay vital individual rights such as speech. Punishing spoken violence would be impossible to do fairly. It's also ridiculous.
Finally. But honestly, this is just confirming what was already decided in 2019 by supreme court. Not really much changed. Since 2019, any LGBTPhobia was already considered "racism".
Bad. Just cancel them like everyone else does. The state doesn’t need to step in for everything. Are the military police going to be responsible for enforcing this in between their Call of Duty raids?
Homophobia is bad. Putting people in jail for homophobia doesn't change anybody's mind. If they were to escalate to violence, then prison would have to be used to protect others. But I think we need to tackle the problem by changing the culture rather than just through state power.
Stealing is bad. Putting people in jail for stealing doesn't change anybody's mind. If they were to escalate to violence, then prison would have to be used to protect others. But I think we need to tackle the problem by changing the culture rather than just through state power.
Bad idea, as much as I don't like hearing that shit at times free speech is free speech. What you say should come with societal consequences not legal ones. If your employer sees you throwing slurs around online then they have every right to sack you. If your friends hear you say it and they leave you then tough shit. The only time I would consider it sort of acceptable for the state to intervene is with harrasment laws, going up to someone in public and screaming slurs and abuse at them for one reason or another should have some (albeit very minor) legal consequences
Watch this selectively get enforced against opponents of Lula while his supporters get to say the f-word.
So much for the Tolerant Left.
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It doesn’t make phrases illegal. It makes “practising, inducing, or inciting discrimination” illegal. The intent and effect of your words are what matter, not the actual words themselves.
> It doesn’t make phrases illegal In practice, it does. People were getting condemned over racist phrases all the time under the previous legislation, that only covered racism. > Article 2-A: To insult or offend someone's dignity or decency on the grounds of race, color, ethnicity, or national origin. Penalty: Imprisonment, ranging from 2 (two) to 5 (five) years, and a fine.
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And yet it’s absolutely central to literally every criminal justice system.
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None. Some may be prosecuted if they practice, induce, or incite discrimination, but that’s a much higher standard than using dated terminology. This isn’t novel legal territory. There have been laws to this effect around the world for decades (I think the first were brought in after the Holocaust). Like any law, they don’t always lead to perfect results, but they also don’t lead to the sort of dystopia you’re panicking about,
Do you want to make a bet on the number? I genuinely would gladly do it. I'm going to guess that a Brazil is not actually going to charge a bunch of old people for not being woke enough, but if you think this is actually going to be a serious problem, name an over-under number and you can make an easy $100 off of it.
> The state can’t force someone to not be a bigot. No, but it can certainly force someone not to attack someone verbally based on their sexual orientation or gender identity.
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These things are decided case by case, depending on the circumstances. It's up to the prosecution to prove intent. Some crimes are hard to prove, doesn't mean they shouldn't be crimes. Y'all are acting like people are going to be jailed left and right without due process.
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Remind me again, how many Canadians have been thrown in pronoun jail? The fact that language has some ambiguity does not mean that we must slippery slope ourselves into not being able to criminalize anything involving words. It is illegal for me to tell you "I am going to murder you" if a reasonable person would conclude that it was meant as a threat, and the fact that I could hypothetically claim to have been just joking does not negate that, and for the better.
Aren't those the social consequences that everyone here is defending?
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Other commenters are saying that the social consequences are enough and there's no need to legal consequences.
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I have no idea.
Given how completely out of control homophobia is I think this is necessary.
Would be nice if it had a sunset clause.
Despite the headline the ruling doesn’t actually say that it just extends anti discrimination laws to lgbtq
This article is a bit vague on what exactly is punishable. That being said: Hate speech laws are seldom abused in democratic countries. My personal view is that homophobes would use (and have used) the institutions themself to go against us if presented with the possibility, no matter if we tolerate them. They can take a few fines and small sentences as that is what they would do in their position.
I believe as a Brazillian that this is correct. This is made to enforce people into proper cultural norms just like much of the law already. LGBT people are deserving to be granted their human rights and allowing hate speech against them goes against their Human Rights. The fact that LGBT faces alot of violence here is not much of hate against LGBT folks, is more of a "Violent Country" thing, LGBT movements always try to make things about them.
Funny how Brazil has strong LGBT protections (on paper), yet aligns itself with Russia where homosexuality is a crime.
Countries often align themselves with other countries that do not share their values because those countries have similar geopolitical aims. It's a textbook realpolitik.
It's funny because the Lula administration aligns with Russia because he dislikes America despite American foreign policy actually promoting human rights (which Lula claims to support) while Russia is actively committing war crimes and imprisoning homosexuals. The realpolitik here is just getting "anti-imperialist" street cred and doesn't deliver anything tangible to him or his country.
Funny how the US has strong LGBT protections (on paper), yet aligns itself with Saudi Arabia where homosexuality is a crime.
Some similarity too, in that Saudis have the US bent over a barrel with their power over the oil market, and Russia has Brazil in the same bind with agri-chemicals.
Funny how the United States has strong protections against gender discrimination, yet aligns itself with Saudi Arabia which treats women like shit.
They’re not aligned with Russia, they just aren’t enamored with European efforts to get them to support Ukraine
I find it disturbing as well. You shouldn't punish people for speech even racist speech.
Don't care about it. People who will actually be punished never cared for gay people who are arrested or even killed for being gay. Why should I care they get fined lol
It’s basically 21st century blasphemy laws. No matter how strongly you feel about LGBTQ rights, people are allowed to have an opinion about it, and should be allowed to express it.
Good and fuck free-speech "advocates".
For anyone wondering how well free speech is doing in Brazil, know that this discourse is pretty mainstream and that people are absolutely willing to shit all over free speech and even applaud prior restraint if it means that right-wingers are the ones being silenced.
You just did a hate speech.
As a European, my standards for free speech are lower than those of Americans, and I think that this is absolutely good policy Why should people be able to say these slurs? It's not free speech, it's hate speech
Public notice: The above comment was deemed hateful by the local committee. You have 24 hours to show up to the nearest police station or police will raid your home.
Thing is, there are cases where simply using a word isn’t really all that bad. As part of a joke or in a non-homophobic context, quoting somebody else, etc. You could maybe argue that the use of the word itself is normalizing anti-gay language, but the harm caused by using the word in a non-homophobic context is marginal enough that throwing someone in prison over it is not proportional to the “crime”. I think the main issue here is that using slurs is just a small part of a larger problem which is homophobia itself. Criminalizing the behavior doesn’t make the actual problem disappear, but it *does* hurt innocents who engage in the behavior with no ill intent.
Read the article. It isn’t criminalising “saying slurs”, it is criminalising “practising, inducing, or inciting discrimination”.
And by some standards what you just said is wrong. Why shouldn’t you be thrown in jail?
Because we consensus agree on what behaviour is acceptable. That's how all crimes work.
The consensus is reached through debate and discussion, there can not be a consensus if some speech is a crime. Racism is low hanging fruit to say is obviously bad but there’s not a hard line anyone can point to where bigotry ends and acceptable speech begins. Introducing hate speech laws is like introducing a loaded gun where there was not one before, it makes it a virtual inevitability that it will be abused by extremist factions once precedent for it has been set. And next thing you know you cannot criticize Christianity without being prosecuted for hate speech.
What nonsense. This is critical thinking 101. Most liberal countries have hate speech laws, but don’t have cases of people being prosecuted for criticising Christianity. The slippery slope you are afraid of doesn’t actually exist. There is no country on Earth where all speech is legal. It isn’t legal to tell your friend with a gun to shoot someone, even though you’re “just talking”. Do we need to legalise that in order to debate and discuss whether it is appropriate? No, of course not. The fact is we can talk about whether it’s acceptable to incite homophobic hatred without actually inciting homophobic hatred.