The president underestimated the impact of the pandemic and mismanaged the country's health resources leading to an increase in Covid-19 cases and deaths. | Photo: DW
Brasilia, May 24 (RHC)-- The Permanent Peoples' Tribunal (PPT) will judge on Tuesday, May 24 and Wednesday, May 25, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro for committing crimes against humanity during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The attacks the president committed against minorities and the country's democracy will also be presented as hostile acts that affected Brazilian society.
The former Minister of Human Rights, member of the Arns Commission and professor of Political Science at the University of Sao Paulo (USP), Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro expressed that "Bolsonaro will be judged for his impunity in the last three years".
The judicial petition was filed by the Commission for the Defense of Human Rights Dom Paulo Evaristo Arns, the Public Services International, the Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil and the Black Coalition for Rights.
The trial is taking place at the PPT headquarters in Rome, Italy, and at the Law School of the University of Sao Paulo.
Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro recalled that during the pandemic period, the president deployed an anti-vaccine campaign, postponed the application of vaccines and proposed ineffective drugs contributing to misinformation and popular panic.
Jair Bolsonaro was denounced by "the Supreme Court, by the Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry on the pandemic and acts and repeats his banners of disrespect for the rights of the population and treating civil society as his enemy", said the representative of the Arns Commission.
The Court that will receive the case is an opinion instance without condemnatory power from the legal perspective that investigates cases prosecuted by the international public opinion in defense of the rights of the peoples.
The crimes perpetrated by Bolsonaro during the pandemic will be exposed by the lawyer and professor Eloisa Machado, from the Getulio Vargas Foundation of Sao Paulo, and the witnesses of the case, before the PTT court, composed of 12 world-renowned personalities and an incumbent who will hear the claims.
Although the Planalto Palace (seat of the Executive Power) has not yet confirmed that it will send a representative to defend the president, the plaintiffs consider that it is the "right time to install this court of opinion."
The USP professor declared that with such a lawsuit it will be possible to "compensate for such a long period of time that consecrates total impunity in the scope of his mandate."
It is worth noting that Brazil was among the main countries with pandemic peak on several occasions and the number of Covid-19 infections exceeds 665 thousand cases.
Jair Bolsonaro publicly underestimated the impact of the pandemic and encouraged Brazilians to continue working without taking into account the risk of contagion, thus turning his back on his responsibilities as a manager of fair public policies.
