Brazilian court orders Bolsonaro to remove churches from list of essential services.
The judge has accepted the request from the Public Prosecutor's Office and ordered the government to establish measures to "prevent 'religious activities of any nature' from remaining included in the list of essential activities and services."
247 - Federal Judge Manoel Pedro Martins de Castro Filho, of the 6th Court of Brasília, ruled that the Jair Bolsonaro government must remove "religious activities of any nature" from the list of essential activities.
The ruling upholds the request from the Public Prosecutor's Office and asks the government to establish measures to "prevent 'religious activities of any nature' from remaining included in the list of essential activities and services for the purpose of addressing the public health emergency of international concern arising from the coronavirus."
The decision suspends a section of Bolsonaro's decree on essential services, which included churches, stating that "it does not align with the extremely serious situation of public calamity resulting from the pandemic, which requires the coordinated efforts and sacrifices of the Public Authorities and the entire Brazilian society to guarantee, for all, the effectiveness of the fundamental rights to life and health."