Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro on Tuesday aroused outrage by sharing a video on Twitter that shows a man urinating on the head of another man during a carnival party.
Bolsonaro made the post to criticize the freewheeling celebrations of carnival, which many Brazilian conservatives call heathen and immoral.
The far-right president himself was one of the main targets of revelers’ mockery during this week’s carnival, a time when samba schools and organizers of thousands of street parties traditionally take politicians to task.
Photo: AP
Bolsonaro’s post included video of a Sao Paulo street party in which a man wearing a jockstrap touches himself sexually, then lowers his head while another man urinates on him.
“I feel uncomfortable showing it, but we have to expose the truth for the population to know and always make its priorities,” Bolsonaro wrote. “This is what many street parties in Brazil’s carnival have become. Comment and draw your conclusions.”
The tweet quickly garnered tens of thousands of comments, many sharply critical of the post.
“You need medical help urgently,” tweeted journalist Fabio Pannunzio, who said his six-year-old granddaughter and other children saw the post.
Some people said that posting what amounted to a pornographic video was a violation of presidential rules of decorum, saying it could prompt an impeachment petition.
Others defended Bolsonaro, saying that children should not be allowed on Twitter anyway and that the president was just showing how debased carnival celebrations have become.
“The left that shows butts and breasts in the streets, that uses religious symbols for profane acts in the public square, that supports expositions with naked adults for children to touch are now ‘shocked’ by the video shared by the president,” tweeted Joice Hasselmann, a leading lawmaker in Bolsonaro’s party.
Some users said they were reporting the post for allegedly violating Twitter’s rules, but it remained on Bolsonaro’s timeline on Wednesday afternoon.
On Wednesday morning, Bolsonaro posted another tweet that seemed to taunt his critics: “What is a golden shower?”
By the afternoon, revelers were seen carrying shower heads with yellow paper hanging from them.
This year’s carnival has taken particular aim at Bolsonaro, his three sons, all politicians and others in his administration.
Mauricio Santoro, a political science professor at the State University of Rio de Janeiro, said that such intense roasting of the president usually does not happen so soon after being elected.
“There is usually a honeymoon period the first year,” Santoro said.
“Even in an atmosphere of aggressive tweets, such as by US President Donald Trump, this was a different level,” Santoro said. “It’s hard to imagine another president doing this.”
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