Police investigating the action of skinheads against gays in Rio de Janeiro

Originally published in the newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo on 7/06/2010.

Counting points gangs as responsible for attacks in the south, in Nova Iguaçu and in Niteroi.

For police, the group may be linked to torture and murder of 14 year old boy in Sao Goncalo, two weeks ago.


ITALO NOGUEIRA
from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Posters in defense of the "straight pride" and pamphlets against the bill criminalizing homophobia were scattered around the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro by groups of skinheads.
For the Rio police, these gangs are responsible for a series of attacks on homosexuals in the south zone of Rio, in Nova Iguaçu, Niterói and São Gonçalo.
Police say they do not know how many gays were victims of skinheads, who organize the web. But if he determines Alexander Ivo, 14, tortured and killed two weeks ago in Saint Mary, was the victim of homophobic attack.
He and friends attending a party when he started an argument with another group. After the fight, with verbal and physical, the friends of Alexander went to the police station to register complaints and returned to the party.
Around 1:30 a.m., the boy left alone. Has not been seen. The next day his body was found in a vacant lot. He had been suffocated and had lesions in the skull, possibly caused by rocks and beatings with iron bars.
The police came to suspect by the Hotline. Determines whether the crime was motivated by homophobia or the fight. For the mother of Ivo, Ivo Angelica Vidal, 40, he "suffered the aggression being around homosexuals."
The three involved, Allan Siqueira de Freitas, 22, Andre Luiz Macola, 23, Eric DeBruim, 22, arrested preemptively deny the crime and links with skinheads.
The State Secretariat for Human Rights follows the investigations of Rio and NGOs organized march against crime. Ivo's friends say, however, who were threatened. "Someone called me and said it would kill me if I came," said one boy.
The Office for the Repression of Crimes Computers claims to systematic patrols to shut down sites that advocate homophobia.
"We got no defense when the clear assaults or murders, because it is incitement to crime. But a law against homophobia, as there is racism, it would facilitate our action," says Helen delegated Sardenberg.

HOMOSEXUALITY
By e-mail, a representative group of bald Rio Brazil (present in at least nine states) told Folha do not feel hatred for homosexuals, but "as much intolerance as any Catholic or evangelical." The group denies involvement in the death of Ivo.
"Our position is against homosexuality, not against homosexuals."

*-*-*-*

I, as an evangelical Christian, I have the same position that the Bible has on the subject. But I find it unacceptable that people are tortured and killed for being or having ideas different from ours.

In Brazil, the bill against homophobia, which makes homophobic attacks amounting to crimes of racism, a felony. But the project is controversial and a very large number of Christians are against it. While discussing the attacks motivated by victim's sexual orientation may be considered biased attacks framed the law of racism, young people are dying like this. This must end.