Brazilian police ID suspect in attack on Netflix gay Jesus filmmakers
By Julio Severo
Brazilian police have identified one of
the people responsible for a gasoline bomb attack targeting Brazilian left-wing
satirists behind a Christmas program on Netflix that Christians around the
world have criticized as blasphemous for portraying Jesus as a homosexual man.
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| Book “Imbecil Coletivo,” by Olavo de Carvalho, and other materials seized by police in the house of the suspect behind the attack |
The Christmas Eve attack on the video
production house, Porta dos Fundos, came as a shock to Christians, because
even though Brazil is accustomed to violence, Christians do not use violence to
attack individuals involved in the production of blasphemous movies against
Jesus. After the attack, a video circulating days later on social media showed
three men claiming to be right-wingers taking responsibility for the attack,
and said they had targeted Brazilian left-wing comedy group Porta dos Fundos
for its Portuguese-language program.
The Brazilian production company released
the controversial Christmas special titled “The First Temptation of Christ” on
December 3. It quickly sparked outrage from conservative Christians who
demanded Netflix remove it.
The attack also came after petitions began appearing on Change.org, some of
which landed more than two million signatures.
Initially, Brazilian right-wingers alleged
that the attack was a left-wing ploy to incriminate right-wingers. Olavo
de Carvalho, considered the Rasputin of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro,
shared an article from a website of one of his adherents accusing left-wing TV journalist
Fabio Pannunzio, who in turn reacted by saying that he is going to launch lawsuit
against Carvalho in Brazil and in the U.S. Carvalho is a self-exiled Brazilian
in the U.S. since 2005.
In a surprising turn of events not
favoring the accusation Carvalho shared against the journalist, the “political-philosophical”
books found in the suspect’s house were exactly Carvalho’s books.
Brazilian police seized in the house of Eduardo
Fauzi Richard Cerquise, the identified suspect in the attack against Porta dos
Fundos, over US$ 25,000, ammunition and the book “Imbecil
Coletivo” by Olavo de Carvalho.
Police chief
Marco Aurélio de Paula Ribeiro said, “Eduardo has a violent, antagonistic
profile. He has books related to the Christian religion and
Islam. He is an upper-middle-class businessman.”
Although the police chief misidentified
Carvalho’s book as a book linked to the Christian religion, because it is used
by many far-right-wing Catholics, actually Carvalho’s writings are linked more
to esoteric or syncretic Catholicism. As for Islam, even in Carvalho there is
no incompatibility in this matter. He was actively involved in Islamic groups
and was awarded by the government of Saudi Arabia for a biography of Muhammad
that he wrote. Even today, Carvalho’s two sons profess the Islamic faith and
his eldest daughter reports that when she was a teenager he forced her to marry
a Muslim in a mosque.
The political activism of Carvalho was
inspired in René Guénon, an Islamic occultist whose most prominent disciple was
right-wing occultist author Julius Evola, who inspired Italian fascist dictator
Benito Mussolini.
The investigation said that Eduardo Cerquise
participated and filmed the attack on Porta dos Fundos on December 24. Police
have analyzed more than 50 cameras in the region where the producer is located.
Investigators say five people participated
in the attack and that Cerquise was driving the car used in the escape.
Everyone was hooded, but Cerquise was the only one who fled with his face
uncovered.
Eduardo Cerquise has a criminal record and
responds to lawsuits for threat, assault on women, personal injury and gang
formation. In total he has 20 criminal notes for threat and aggression.
Cerquise
is
a member of PSL, the party where Bolsonaro was elected, since 2001. Bolsonaro
has left the party.
In a new video, Cerquise said,
“When Porta dos Fundos scoffs at the name
of our Lord Jesus Christ, they trample on the hope of millions of people who
only have Jesus Christ as wealth… he who speaks ill of the name of Christ
preaches against the Brazilian people. This is a federal offense. They are
criminals, they are outcasts, they are bandits.”
According to the Brazilian newspaper
Estadao, the Brazilian Intregralist Front, a Catholic nationalist movement, expelled
Cerquise on December 31.
The violent profile of Cerquise is not fit
with Christians, who protest blasphemous movies without trying to harm anyone
and their properties. Blasphemy is not something new in movies. The 1970 movie “Beneath
the Planet of the Apes,” a sequel of the 1968 movie “Planet of the Apes,” portrayed
people worshipping the Atomic Bomb with the same religious feelings and words,
including Bible’s Psalms, Christians worship Jesus Christ. Hollywood has produced
thousands of other blasphemous movies.
Yet, Cerquise, with his violent behavior,
is not a follower of Jesus Christ. He is a follower of Carvalho, who has denied
what is undeniable, that the Inquisition tortured and killed multitudes of Jews
and Protestants. He who denies violence where it is or it was abundant
eventually sows violence in his followers.
A
very common characteristic of individuals who follow Carvalho is that they deny
the violence of the Inquisition. Even evangelical ministers who fall prey
to his spell eventually deny the violence of the Inquisition.
Christians should protest blasphemous
movies and denounce violent right-wingers.
As to Cerquise, he needs prayers to know Jesus
Christ, but he should repent from his sins and take full responsibility for his
anti-Christian violence.
Portuguese version of this article: Polícia
identifica suspeito de atentado a cineastas de Jesus gay da Netflix
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