This week, opinions issued by federal deputy Kim Kataguiri (DEM-SP) and by Flow Podcast presenter, Monark, caused outrage in Brazil. Claiming that no opinion can be restricted, Monark stated that “there should be a legalized Nazi party in Brazil”.
In the same vein, the congressman argued that “no matter how absurd, idiotic, undemocratic” a person may be, the manifestation of this thought “should not be a crime”, because “the best way to repress an idea” would be to expose it to public view. to be “socially rejected”.
Guests from previous shows asked for their participation to be removed from the podcast’s archives, sponsors canceled contracts, Monark ended up removed from the show and the Attorney General’s Office (PGR) opened an investigation against both for their lines. The deputy also became the target of impeachment requests in the Chamber.
Two days later, President Jair Bolsonaro defended that Nazism should be repudiated “unrestrictedly”, but demanded that Brazilian laws also include the criminalization of the defense of communism – national legislation establishes that the apology of Nazi ideas can be penalized with fine and imprisonment of two to five years.
The president’s statement echoed a claim made by his supporters on social media as Monark and Kataguiri’s statements resonated.
In the United States, manifestations of support for Nazism and communism are allowed, as defended by the presenter and the deputy. Like Brazil, other countries, including France and Austria, criminalize Nazism, but allow the use of communist iconography and parties of this ideological line.
In Germany, where Nazism emerged, displaying Nazi symbols can carry a fine and imprisonment for up to three years, and denial of the Holocaust, up to five years. However, although the eastern half of the country suffered from communism between World War II and the fall of the Berlin Wall, the use of communist symbols is not prohibited in the country and is even used by the local Communist Party.
Other countries, on the contrary, have laws that prohibit communist demonstrations, but do not give the same treatment to Nazi ideology. In South Korea, the use of symbols and demonstrations in favor of communism and the North Korean dictatorship are crimes under the National Security Law. In Indonesia, where massive anti-communist massacres took place in the 1960s, references to this ideology can be punished with up to 20 years in prison.
However, in Eastern Europe, a region that suffered at the hands of both Nazis and Communists, some countries criminalize both ideologies. In Ukraine, the Constitutional Court in 2019 ratified a law that equates communism with Nazism and prohibits the dissemination of their symbols.
“The communist regime, like the Nazi regime, inflicted irreparable damage to human rights because during its existence it exercised total control over society and politically motivated persecution and repression, it violated its international obligations and its own constitutions and laws,” the court said. , for whom the two systems “implemented repressive state policies”.
The legislation, which had been passed by the Ukrainian parliament in 2015, provides for up to five years in prison for individuals and closure of organizations, whose perpetrators can be jailed for up to ten years. Latvia and Lithuania, other former Soviet republics, passed laws to that effect in 2013 and 2008, respectively.
In Romania, the National Security Act of 1991 stipulates that any action “supporting” “totalitarian or extremist actions” by “communists, fascists” or any other adherents of radical theories can be punished with imprisonment from two to three years. seven years, although it makes no mention of the use of symbols.
Some theorists argue that, despite both being ideologies responsible for millions of deaths, communism cannot be equated with Nazism because it would not have the idea of extermination at the base of its ideology. Others, however, claim the opposite – and point out that communism killed more.
“The communists killed 70 million people in China, more than 20 million in the Soviet Union (not counting about 5 million Ukrainians), and almost one in three Cambodians. And the communists enslaved entire nations in Russia, Vietnam, China, Eastern Europe, North Korea, Cuba and much of Central Asia. They ruined the lives of over 1 billion people. So why doesn’t communism have the same terrible reputation as Nazism?
“Until the left and all institutions influenced by the left recognize the evil that communism represented, we will continue to live in a morally confused world.”
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