Thursday, January 02, 2020

Brazilian police ID suspect in attack on Netflix gay Jesus filmmakers


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.
Book “Imbecil Coletivo,” by Olavo de Carvalho, and other materials seized by police in the house of the suspect behind the attack
Officers carried out a search warrant on December 31, 2019 and found money, a fake firearm, ammunition, computers and “political-philosophical” books, police said in a written statement.
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.
With information from NBC News, Associated Press, Fox News, Revista Forum, Gazetaweb and Estadao.
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