The president of the Superior Electoral Court (TSE), Minister Alexandre de Moraes, determined last night (16) that the campaign of the PT candidate for the presidency, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, removes an excerpt from an interview in that President Jair Bolsonaro says he “painted a mood” when referring to Venezuelan teenagers. The two compete in the second round of the race to Palácio do Planalto. 
The minister complied with the request of the Bolsonaro campaign and also prohibited the use of the same excerpt from the interview by the opposing campaign in free TV and radio advertisements. The decision reaches platforms TikTok, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube and Facebook, Telegram and Kwai. The content must be removed immediately, under penalty of a daily fine of R$ 100 thousand.
Moraes agreed with Bolsonaro’s campaign arguments, according to which the president’s speech was seriously taken out of context to associate him with pedophilia. “The disclosure of a fact that is known to be untrue, with serious decontextualization and apparent purpose of linking the candidate’s figure to the commission of a sexual crime, seems enough to configure negative electoral propaganda”, Moraes wrote.
Bolsonaro’s interview with a podcast was held last Friday (14), when he narrated that, on a visit to the town of São Sebastião, in the Federal District (DF), in 2021, he came across well-groomed Venezuelan teenagers, which, for him, would demonstrate that they were subjected to sexual exploitation in order to “earn a living”.
“I was in Brasília, in the community of São Sebastião, if I’m not mistaken, on a Saturday, on a motorcycle. I stopped the bike on a corner, took off my helmet and looked at some little girls. Three four. Beautifuls. 14, 15 years old. Tidy up, on a Saturday, in a community. And I saw that they were kind of similar. Painted a mood, I came back. ‘Can I come into your house?’ I entered. There were about 15, 20 girls, Saturday morning, getting ready, all Venezuelan. And I ask: pretty girls, 14, 15 years old, getting ready on Saturday for what? Making a living,” Bolsonaro told podcast.
In live broadcast in the early hours of Sunday, Bolsonaro said the speech was taken out of context and that his intention was to show indignation at the situation in which Venezuelan girls were living.
“Those Venezuelan girls, who had fled their country, fled hunger, were, a small group of them, like there are thousands across the country, here on the outskirts of Brasília. And what were they getting ready for? I showed all my indignation there. People struggling to make a living in the middle of a pandemic. And I showed my indignation. I said: ‘I don’t want this for our daughters, I don’t want it for my daughter'”, she explained, in the live.
