Digital influencer and YouTuber Felipe Neto was charged with the alleged crime of insult after calling the president of the Chamber of Deputies, Arthur Lira (PP-AL), “excremental” during a symposium at the Legislative House.
In a press release, Arthur Lira’s office reported that “a police investigation was carried out and the author, Mr. Felipe Neto, was charged with the crime of insult (article 140) with an increase in the penalty provided for in article 141, item II, all of the code Brazilian criminal law”.
The penalty for insult is one to six months in prison, or a fine. However, this possible worsening mentioned by Lira’s advisors occurs when the insult is committed against a public employee, due to their duties.
“The Parliamentary Prosecutor’s Office of the Chamber of Deputies will take legal action against the aforementioned citizen before the Federal Court in a criminal action”, also says the note from Lira’s office.
The President of the Chamber’s team had already confirmed this Thursday (25) to CNN that Lira contacted the Legislative Police as soon as she learned of Felipe Neto’s speech during virtual participation in the symposium “Regulation of digital platforms and the urgency of an agenda”, promoted by the Chamber, on Tuesday (23).
“We need to talk more to the people, we need to invite the people more to participate, as the Marco Civil da Internet brilliantly did. And we fundamentally need to change our perception of what a bill is, as PL 2630 was. [fake news e redes sociais]which was unfortunately crushed by the excremental Arthur Lira”, declared Felipe Neto.
In a letter sent to the Legislative Police, Lira states that it came to his attention that Felipe Neto “made insulting expressions against me”.
“In this context, considering that the facts reported above may constitute the practice of crimes against honor, occurring on the premises of the Chamber of Deputies, I determine the adoption of the appropriate measures, with regard to the competence of this Legislative Police”, he wrote.
Lira says that Neto was rude; influencer claims to have made a “satirical opinion”
This Friday morning (26), Arthur Lira said that the influencer used the seminar to “scratch and gain media and likes”, citing practices such as defamation and insult when talking about the comment. He even called the influencer “impolite”.
“A constant criticism about social media is the lack of civility, respect and education among many who use it,” wrote Lira.
“Freedom of expression is confused with the right to offend, defame and insult. That’s what Mr Felipe Neto did in a seminar at the Chamber, a public medium for a good debate, but which he used to make fun of and gain media and likes. This is not freedom of expression. It’s being rude”, said the deputy on X, formerly Twitter.
On Thursday, on the same social network, Felipe Neto said that he had just “learned that the president of the Chamber of Deputies called the police” against him.
“My intention, when quoting ‘excrementíssimo’, was clearly to make fun of the word ‘excellent’, a satirical, joking opinion, evidently with no intention of offending honor,” he said.
“I have suffered attempts to silence people using the police before, including by the Bolsonaro family. I will continue facing this entire group as long as I have the strength left. And I never said I would face them with flowers, nor have I and I never will,” he added.
Felipe Neto also wrote a quote from Supreme Federal Court (STF) minister Alexandre de Moraes about freedom of expression:
“Freedom of expression exists for the expression of contrary, jocular, satirical and even erroneous opinions, but not for criminal opinions, hate speech or attacks against the Democratic Rule of Law and democracy.”
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