By Eduardo Guimarães, from Citizenship Blog
Brazil woke up worse than yesterday. From now on, what until now was a terrifying possibility becomes official: Brazilian citizens are being deprived of their individual freedoms simply because of the political and partisan ideologies they cherish.
The "so distracted motherland" was "stealthed in shady dealings" between partisan political groups, media outlets, and politically motivated judges.
In the photo illustrating this text, the reader can see the only asset of a politician who was convicted of the crimes of "active corruption and conspiracy" by the Supreme Federal Court on October 9, 2012.
Along with him were other politicians or political activists affiliated with the Workers' Party, all with modest increases in wealth considering the positions they held in politics.
José Dirceu, José Genoino, João Paulo Cunha, and Henrique Pizzolato had their arrests ordered based on convictions by a Court in which, throughout its centuries-long existence, politicians of such importance had never been convicted.
The conviction of these four men, all of whom have significant political standing, could even be celebrated. Finally, politicians would begin to be held accountable for their actions. After all, until now the Supreme Court has always been seen as the main escape route for corrupt politicians.
Unfortunately, the only prison sentence that Court handed down against a political group was built on a gigantic farce, denounced even by political adversaries of those convicted, such as the jurist Ives Gandra Martins, who, despite his disagreements with the PT (Workers' Party), acknowledged that there was no evidence to convict José Dirceu, or the formulator of the theory used to convict the defendants in the Mensalão scandal, the German Claus Roxin, who condemned the use that the Supreme Federal Court made of his revision of the theory of Command Responsibility.
Dirceu and Genoino were convicted of "forming a criminal organization" and "active corruption," despite the former being infinitely further removed from the events that generated the "mensalão scandal" than Geraldo Alckmin and José Serra are from the Alstom and Siemens scandals, for example.
Dirceu was accused and convicted despite the fact that, at the time of the Mensalão scandal, he was distant from the Workers' Party, as he was then part of Lula's government. He was convicted simply because he "should have known" about the criminal acts due to his importance in the PT.
Why was Dirceu supposed to "know" about the irregularities, while Alckmin and Serra aren't even mentioned by the Public Prosecutor's Office, the courts, or the media as having direct responsibility for the governments in which the aforementioned scandals occurred?
The Genoino case is more serious. His absolutely spartan life, his meager assets, his unblemished record—none of that mattered when he was judged and convicted as a "corruptor" who allegedly used millions of reais to "buy" parliamentarians.
The João Paulo Cunha case is equally ridiculous, in terms of his conviction. His wife went to the bank to withdraw, in her own name, using her own CPF (Brazilian tax identification number), funds transferred from his party to pay for an electoral poll. He was convicted of 50 reais for "passive corruption, embezzlement, and money laundering."
The most painful case of all, however, is perhaps that of Henrique Pizzolato, an employee of Banco do Brasil and member of the PT party, who was also convicted of "passive corruption, embezzlement, and money laundering" for signing a document that dozens of other employees of the same institution also signed without facing any consequences.
This is happening in a country where it is known that two PSDB governors of São Paulo, despite having been involved in the theft of BILLIONS OF REAIS during their administrations, are not held accountable for anything.
This is happening in a country where a politician like Paulo Maluf, whose evidence of corruption has been mounting for decades, has never been sentenced to prison.
This is happening in a country where a governor like Marconi Perillo, from the PSDB party, was deeply involved with a criminal of Carlinhos Cachoeira's stature, was recorded in promiscuous relationships with this criminal, and wasn't even charged by the Public Prosecutor's Office.
This is finally happening in the same country where former mayors José Serra and Gilberto Kassab tolerated years of corruption within the city hall, and when this theft of HALF A BILLION reais comes to light, who do the media and the Public Prosecutor's Office accuse? The PT, of course.
It has therefore become part of the popular imagination that, in this country, prison is only for blacks, poor people, prostitutes and, from now on, supporters of the Workers' Party.
In Brazil, people are harshly condemned by the "justice" system if they have more melanin in their skin, meager economic resources, if they sell what belongs only to them (their own body) to survive, or if they hold political convictions that the Brazilian elite does not accept.
However, condemning someone to lose their freedom because of their political convictions is more serious. It is characteristic of dictatorships, since the inequality of justice compared to the other three Ps stems from a lack of resources to defend oneself, not from retaliation against an ideology.
So now it's official: you live in a country where you should be afraid to profess and exercise your true political convictions, because you know that they expose you to dictatorial retaliation, like the kind that will send men to jail whose guilt has never been proven.