The Public Ministry of Rio Grande do Sul filed, this Friday (15), a complaint against the impeached former Porto Alegre councilor Alexandre Bobadra for the crime of political gender violence. The complaint comes from a request to unarchive the police investigation that had indicted the former parliamentarian for the crime against Bruna Rodrigues (PCdoB), when both were still parliamentarians in the City Council of the capital of Rio Grande do Sul.
For Bruna Rodrigues, currently a state deputy for Rio Grande do Sul, the opening of the process is necessary to stop further crimes of gender-based political violence. “Being a woman in politics is a permanent challenge, as we know how difficult it is to get here. And with our arrival in the legislative houses, violence and hostility against us intensified, after all, for them, it is necessary to support the idea of that politics is not a space for us”, says the state deputy.
The parliamentarian emphasizes that talking about gender-based political violence, which affects the arrival and retention of women in politics, is increasingly urgent, so that cases like this do not go unpunished. “We cannot take it for granted that we are constantly sexualized, diminished and violated in the most diverse ways because we are women, because this violence tries to keep us away from this space that we fight to occupy. We will continue the fight for justice and the end of violence against women also in decision-making spaces”, highlights Bruna.
Complaint
According to electoral promoter Josiene Menezes Paim, on August 22, 2022, at the City Council, the then accused “embarrassed and humiliated, through words and gestures, Bruna (…), using contempt or discrimination status as a woman, committing acts of gender-based violence, with the aim of hindering the performance of her elective mandate”.
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The prosecutor also highlighted that “when acting, the accused, after speaking in the Tribune, started to refer to the councilor in an embarrassing way, in front of the others present in the plenary, shouting to her that ‘on the fifth day she would pay a basket basic’, as there would be a ‘hearing in which he was a victim’, shouting, more than once, that he had been ‘denounced by the Public Prosecutor’s Office'”. In this way, he would be “defaming and humiliating her before her peers, through words and gestures, acts that consisted of the practice of gender-based political violence, which transcend the sphere of political dispute, spilling over into personal offenses, due to the councilor’s gender , with the clear purpose of diminishing and embarrassing her before her political party, her peers and the electorate”.
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The MP also recalled previous occasions, where the former parliamentarian, shouting, prevented the councilor from expressing her opinion, hindering her political activity, and referred to her with expressions of sexual content. As reported at the time, Bobadra stated that Bruna had a “hot” for him. According to the MP, this also corroborates that the acts were carried out due to the gender of the current state deputy, as she is a woman and acted as party leader at the time.
In March 2022, then-councilman Bobadra was indicted for the crime of political violence against women, by police chief Alicia Jantsch Fernandes, from the Police Station Specialized in Women’s Assistance in Rio Grande do Sul.
Source: BdF Rio Grande do Sul
Editing: Thalita Pires
