MBL paga mico no Guardian por censura a exposição

247 – O jornal britânico The Guardian retratou o momento assustador da sociedade brasileira, em que uma exposição sobre diversidade sexual pôde ser censurada por movimentos de extrema direita, como o MBL.

O banco Santander, que patrocinava a exposição, se submeteu à censura.

Leia, abaixo, um trecho da reportagem:

A storm over artistic freedom and censorship has erupted in Brazil after an art exhibition at a multinational bank’s cultural centre was cancelled following a campaign by rightwing protesters.

The controversy broke out when the Queermuseu – Queer Museum – exhibition at Santander Bank’s cultural centre in Porto Alegre was abruptly closed on Sunday, a month ahead of schedule.

Supported by evangelical Christians, protestors from the Free Brazil Movement accused the exhibition – which included 263 works from Brazilian greats such as Candido Portinari and Lygia Clark – of promoting blasphemy, paedophilia and bestiality, charges its curator vigorously denied.

“They are passing the limits of tolerance and we are giving them a response,” said Silas Malafia, a leading evangelical pastor.

Brazil’s artistic community has attacked the protest as dangerous censorship in a country that lived through 21 years of military dictatorship.

“It is an exhibition that deals with issues of identity,” the curator Gaudêncio Fidelis told the Guardian. “This is a frightening moment in Brazilian life.”

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The Free Brazil Movement has grown in influence since helping to oust Rousseff on charges of breaking budget rules and has adopted increasingly rightwing positions, such as advocating freeing up gun ownership laws.

Kim Kataguiri, one of its leaders, said he saw no contradiction in free-market liberals attacking an art exhibition, arguing that they had called for a boycott of the exhibition, not censorship.

“We did the boycott because the exhibition involved public money in the promotion of bestiality, paedophilia and offences to the Christian faith,” Kataguiri told the Guardian.

Kataguiri said gay friends of his had also objected to the Queer Museum.

“The exhibition shows gays as bestial and aggressive beings,” he said. “Brazilians always had Christian values, but now they have the courage to defend them against the noisy minority who attack us.”