State deputy Rodrigo Amorim (PTB) became a defendant for political gender violence against trans councilor Benny Briolly (PSOL). The decision was taken unanimously by the judges of the Regional Electoral Court (TRE) of Rio de Janeiro, on Tuesday afternoon (23). They fully followed the vote of the rapporteur, judge Kátia Junqueira, and received the complaint from the Regional Electoral Prosecutor, for violence against the woman candidate or in the exercise of the elective mandate.
Regional electoral prosecutor Neide de Oliveira recalled the deputy’s attack on May 17, 2022, during a speech at the plenary of the Legislative Assembly of Rio de Janeiro (Alerj), broadcast on the house’s television channel and on the internet.
“The accused spoke, harassed, embarrassed and humiliated the elective mandate holder Benny Briolly, councilor for the municipality of Niterói, in contempt and discrimination against her condition as a trans woman”, highlighted the prosecutor, who reproduced a video of Amorim’s speech.
In this, the deputy cursed Benny Briolly using several disqualifying words, such as “aberration” and “beelzebub”, which was understood by the other judges of the TRE as adverse to freedom of expression or parliamentary immunity.
According to the TRE, the deputy, now a defendant, will respond to a process based on Law 4,737/1965, which established the Electoral Code, specifically referring to Article 326-B: “Harass, embarrass, humiliate, harass or threaten, by any means, a candidate in an elective position or holding an elective mandate, using contempt or discrimination against the condition of a woman or her color, race or ethnicity, with the purpose of preventing or hindering her electoral campaign or the performance of her elective mandate.”
The penalty provides for imprisonment from one to four years of detention and a fine, with an increase of one third if the crime is committed in the presence of several people, or through a means that facilitates the disclosure of the offense, with contempt or discrimination against the condition of a woman or the your color, race or ethnicity; through the internet or social network or with real-time transmission, which was the case of Amorim.
Present at the TRE session, lawyer Rodrigo Barroso, who defends the deputy, maintained that the complaint should be rejected, since the congressman enjoys immunity, and that he did not refer, by name, to Benny Briolly, in his speech.
“This complaint must be rejected, since the accused has parliamentary immunity. Obviously, it is not absolute, but it cannot be relativized to the point of suppressing it. At no time did the accused refer to councilor Benny Briolly. There was just an ideological clash. There is no way to consider the crime of political gender violence, since there is no fitting for this classification. At most, we would run into a crime typified in Article 140 of the Penal Code, a private action, which gives rise to the incompetence of this court”, argued Barroso, without convincing, however, all the judges, who voted to accept the complaint. .
The TRE has not yet set a date for the trial of the case against Amorim.
