Brazil – Neo-Nazi groups grow 270% in 3 years

For specialists and scholars who are dedicated to investigating hate speech in Brazil, the lack of clear laws against abominable practices, such as apology for Nazism and other intolerance, is the main obstacle for these crimes to stop happening in the country. Not only that, the cells of neo-Nazi groups have increased and expanded to the 5 regions in Brazil in the last 3 years.

Anthropologist Adriana Dias, who has been dedicated to researching neo-Nazism in Brazil since 2002, drew up a map that points to the existence of at least 530 extremist cell nuclei, with a capacity of 10,000 people. This represents a 270.6% growth from January 2019 to May 2021.

Among extremist groups, neo-Nazis are in the majority. Adriana explains that they have similarities with each other: “They always start with masculinism, that is, they hate the feminine and therefore a toxic masculinity. They are antisemitic, they hate black people, hate LGBTQIAP+, hate North easterners, hate of immigrants, denial of the holocaust”, she lists.

The federal judge and also a researcher on the subject Cláudia Dadico points out that the lack of clear legislation against hate speech in Brazil is the main obstacle for these crimes to be punished in an exemplary manner.

“The cases that I have followed from the Federal Police have really made a great effort to investigate and punish.  What happens is that, many times, some operators of the law have an understanding of freedom of expression that ends up, in a way, hindering the punishment of these crimes, which clearly do not fall within the field of freedom of expression.”

The prosecutor of the Group for Action and Combat of Organized Crime in Rio de Janeiro (Gaeco-RJ), Bruno Gaspar, points out that “freedom of expression is not unlimited. It does not authorize discriminatory or prejudiced manifestations.”

The Fantástico report identified that the main fuel for the explosion in the number of neo-Nazi cells in Brazil comes from the networks. During months of investigation into private groups sharing extremist material, journalists caught messages of hate, sharing of videos praising Adolf Hitler and demonstrations that extrapolated social networks.

In the video you can see cases where:

1. a group of extremists attacked patrons of an anti-fascist bar in the West Zone of São Paulo, where a swastika had been graffitied days earlier;
2. a young man with a gun who shot at protesters and fears a campaign to support his freedom
3. attacks on a black boy who “responded” to a video of a young man wearing a helmet claiming to be from the “Hitler Legion” and giving the Nazi salute
4. attacks on a girl and her boyfriend, who is black
5. the arrest of a man accused of pedophilia, when police found a huge collection of Nazi material in his home

The Nazi nuclei were concentrated in the southern region of Brazil, but the anthropologist Adriana reports that the cells spread to the five regions of the country. It highlights the Midwest and Southeast regions, with emphasis on Minas Gerais and Rio de Janeiro.

In the capital of Rio de Janeiro, a police operation that aimed to arrest a man accused of pedophilia ended up becoming one of the main seizures of Nazi material in the country. Police officers found a vast collection of Nazi posters, clothing, medals and accessories, not to mention weapons. Machine guns, rifles and pistols, both original at the time and current, had ammunition and were working, according to the forensic examination.

The owner of this collection is Aylson Proença Doyle Linhares, 58 years old. One of the evidence found by the police was his passport, with annual trips to Germany, some lasting months. Now the police are investigating whether there is an organization behind him and whether pieces of his arsenal would be sold.

Aylson’s lawyer, Felipe Camacho, says in a statement that “the alleged apology for Nazism is a mistake, since the accused is a scholar, author of a book and a collector”, and that “old weapons are a paternal inheritance”. About pedophilia, the note says that “the material collected with Aylson is from an internet portal accessible to anyone, with no indication of age of those who appear there”.