Just hours after officially taking office, Brazil’s new right-wing president, Jair Bolsonaro has unveiled a new executive order, putting the rights of Brazil’s LGBTI community at risk.
According to reports by AP, Bolsonaro announced that the human rights ministry would no longer deal with issues facing the nation’s LGBTI community, and has also moved to restrict the allocation of land for indigenous communities.
Speaking on Bolsonaro’s new executive order, LGBTI activist Symmy Larrat said that “We don’t see any signs there will be any other government infrastructure to handle LGBT issues.”
LGBTI activists say that while LGBTI Brazilians have many rights, including marriage equality and the right to adopt, the nation still has huge issues facing homosexuality and has the world’s highest LGBTI murder rate, with 387 individuals killed in 2017.
In conjunction with Brazil’s new president Bolsonaro, LGBTI activists also have serious concerns around the nation’s new human rights minister, Damares Alves, who is also an evangelical pastor and is known for his homophobic views.
Bolsonaro, who boasted about having the backing of US President Donald Trump, won the support of Brazilian voters through promising to take Brazil out of its current economic slump and tackle endemic corruption.
Bolsonaro has previously made disturbing comments, that are described as hate speech, and has attacked minorities and expressed support for the autocratic rule, state torture, and restricting the media.
“If I see two men kissing each other in the street, I’ll whack them,” Bolsonaro was quoted as saying In 2002.
In 2011, Bolsonaro was also quoted saying that, “I would be incapable of loving a gay son,” before adding that he would, “rather my son died in an accident than showed up with some bloke with a mustache.”
