“Desire to hit your mouth”

A journalist asks President Jair Bolsonaro about the role of First Lady Michelle in a corruption scandal. Bolsonaro threatens to hit the reporter in the face and leaves the place.

The Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro threatened a reporter with slaps in the face. “I want to hit you on the mouth,” said the head of state on Sunday to the journalist for the newspaper “O Globo”, who had asked him about the possible role of first wife Michelle Bolsonaro in a political affair. Other reporters present complained about the President’s comment and the President left without further words.

The journalist from “O Globo” as well as colleagues from other media had asked Bolsonaro at a meeting in front of the cathedral of the capital Brasília about the report of a magazine in which the wife of the head of state had been linked to an affair involving the misappropriation of state funds.

Investigation of embezzlement

“O Globo” reacted indignantly to Bolsonaro’s verbal failure and stressed that the reporter had done his job in a “professional manner” when questioning the head of state. Such intimidation shows that Bolsonaro does not recognize his duty to “be accountable to the public” as a servant of the state.

According to the Crusoe magazine report, to which the reporters checked, Michelle Bolsonaro is said to have received payments in her bank account from retired police officer Fabrício Queiroz between 2011 and 2016. Queiroz is friends with the current head of state and previously worked as an advisor to the president’s son Flávio Bolsonaro.

The judiciary is investigating Queiroz and Flávio Bolsonaro because they are alleged to have tapped funds intended for the salaries of state employees for other purposes. Flávio Bolsonaro was a former regional member of the state of Rio de Janeiro, now he is a member of the Senate in Brasília.

Violence in Brazil is increasing

Even apart from the verbal threats of the president, the violence has in Brazil in the Corona-Krise increased again. The number of homicides rose in the first six months of 2020 by six percent compared to the same period last year to 22,680, as the news portal G1 reported on Friday. For the so-called violence monitor, the media company Globo, together with the University of São Paulo and the Brazilian Forum for Public Security, regularly evaluates the state crime statistics.

This stopped the positive trend. In recent years, homicides in Brazil had decreased significantly. In 2019, the number of murders fell 19 percent to 41,635 – the lowest level since the systematic survey began in 2007. Nevertheless, Brazil remains one of the most violent countries in the world.

The renewed increase now coincides with the Corona crisis, in which public life was at least partially restricted. Although the federal government of Bolsonaro braced itself against far-reaching curfews and production stops, several states such as Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo issued restrictions to contain the pandemic from mid-March.

According to experts, the increase in violence is primarily due to conflicts in the underworld. Power struggles over areas of influence repeatedly follow phases of the ceasefire between criminal organizations, during which the number of homicides rises again.

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