Jurist and professor emeritus at Mackenzie University, Ives Gandra Martins, explained that singer Bebel Gilberto’s gesture of stepping on Brazil’s national flag can be considered a “misdemeanor”.
The episode took place last Tuesday (19), in a performance at “The Guild Theatre”, an amphitheater for about 500 people in the city of Menlo Parks, in the US state of California.
During the show, the daughter of João Gilberto and Miúcha receives a flag with a mast from a fan in the audience. She walked with the flag hoisted and said: “I don’t like doing this because I’m not Bolsonaro.” So, the singer makes her protest by sambando on top of the national symbol.
In an interview with CNN view this Monday (25), the specialist details that, in article 13 of the second title of the Federal Constitution, the flag is mentioned as the first national symbol, followed by the national anthem and seals. In this way, disrespecting one of these national symbols is seen as a “contraversion” by the legislation.
This classification took effect in 1971. Until 1969, the act was considered a crime.
“In the past, hitting the national flag was a crime. This, nowadays, may be understood as a misdemeanor”, began Martins.
For the professor emeritus, although a misdemeanor has to be analyzed at the state level, it is up to the Três Poderes to express their views on the artist’s disrespect for one of the national symbols.
“Those who have to preserve the national symbols are the Three Powers”, he defended.
“From an exclusively criminal point of view, I don’t see why it stopped being a crime”, added Martins.
Martins confesses that he does not foresee how the Federal Supreme Court (STF) can position itself on the issue, but he believes that the Court has two paths: “The Supreme Court may take the initiative to take some action or create a new [medida] so that this does not happen again.”
On Saturday night (23), after the great repercussion of the act, Bebel spoke out.
“It was a thoughtless act of mine, because if I had had time to reason, it would have occurred to me that I was giving the far right an image with which they could distill their repugnant hatred and false patriotism,” wrote the statement. singer on Instagram.
“Immediately afterwards, however, I realized that the flag also belongs to all Brazilians and I apologized to the public,” said Bebel.
The jurist praised the artist for recognizing that her attitude was not correct, but stressed that her act goes far beyond what happened on the show.
“It was already a positive fact that she apologized, but it’s much more than that. She didn’t realize that she assaulted the entire nationality, the greatest symbol of the entire country. All countries have their raison d’être in their flag. It was a very strong aggression against nationality,” she said.
Source: CNN Brasil
