Far-right Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro apologized on Tuesday for his comments about young Venezuelan minors that had earned him accusations of pedophilia, particularly by the left-wing opposition.
“If my words, which have been taken out of context in bad faith, have been misinterpreted or have caused shame to our Venezuelan sisters, I apologize,” he said in a video posted on social media.
In the video he appears with his wife Michelle Bolsonaro and María Teresa Belandria, representative in Brazil of the Venezuelan opposition Juan Guaidó, recognized by Jair Bolsonaro as the legitimate president of the country governed by the socialist regime of Nicolás Maduro.
“We are committed to receiving as best as possible those fleeing dictatorships around the world,” added the head of state, who will contest the second round of the presidential elections on October 30 against former leftist president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. , who came first in the first lap.
“An environment has been created”
The controversy began on Friday, when Jair Bolsonaro told an anecdote that dates back to April 2021, in a poor neighborhood of the capital Brasilia, during an interview with the YouTube channel Paparazzo Rubro-Negro, already deleted from YouTube according to the videographer but still available. on other platforms.
“I parked my motorcycle on a corner, took off my helmet and started looking at girls, three or four, pretty, 14, 15 years old (…). An atmosphere is created, so I asked ‘can I come into your house?’”, says the Brazilian president during the interview. “And I came back,” he says again.
In the house, “there were 15 or 20 girls (…) all Venezuelans, 14, 15 years old, preparing, on a Saturday, why? To earn a living,” added Jair Bolsonaro.
The expression “an environment has been created”, in particular, caused outrage, with videos of the interview extract going viral with the hashtag #Bolsonaropedófilo (“Bolsonaro pedophile”) on the networks.
Lula prohibited using the extract for his campaign
On Sunday, the president of the Superior Electoral Court prohibited the use of these excerpts in the official campaign ads of his left-wing presidential opponent, former President Lula.
On Tuesday, Rosangela da Silva, Lula’s wife, tweeted an excerpt from another interview from a month ago, in which the far-right president already insinuated that young Venezuelan women were prostitutes.
“Incredible that the ‘President’ has already exposed these Venezuelan girls, previously in another interview. (…) The ‘good citizen’ should have reported them if there were signs of exploitation of minors. Is there the protection of families? who preaches?” he wrote in particular.
Jair Bolsonaro, who had already responded strongly to the opposition’s accusations on Saturday during the debate between rounds with Lula, assured on Tuesday that the adolescents were not prostitutes. He also claimed to have “always fought against pedophilia” and said that he entered the house with “ten other people” and in front of the cameras of the American channel CNN.
As for Lula, he mentioned the case again on Tuesday. “Bolsonaro’s behavior in this case is that of a pedophile,” she said.
“He noticed, he was scared and he tried to explain himself as quickly as possible,” he said during a live interview on the Flow Podcast YouTube channel.
Source: BFM TV
