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Jair Bolsonaro has been ordered to pay R$1m (£138,000) in collective moral damages for remarks deemed “racist” while he was in office.
The latest ruling, delivered by a state appeals court, came less than a week after Brazil’s former president was sentenced to 27 years and three months in prison for leading an attempted coup to overturn the result of the 2022 election.
In the case judged on Tuesday by the federal court of the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul, Bolsonaro was accused of saying in 2021, while still president, that the hair of a Black supporter, who had an afro, was a “breeding ground for cockroaches”.
Bolsonaro’s defence argued there had been no intention of racial offence and that the supporter himself had publicly said he was not offended.
But the judges ruled the comments were not mere jokes or an exercise of free speech, but amounted to “recreational racism”.
“Racial offence disguised as jocular remarks or mere jokes, linking Black power hair to insects associated with disgust and dirt, harms the honour and dignity of Black people and reinforces the stigma of inferiority of this population,” said judge Roger Raupp Rios.
The judge stressed the gravity of the remarks was heightened by the fact they were made by the country’s sitting president.
The conviction stemmed from a case filed by public prosecutors and the public defender’s office, citing three separate remarks made by Bolsonaro in 2021 during livestreams with supporters outside the presidential palace.
In addition to the cockroach comment, the former president also suggested the supporter had lice. “What do you breed in that mop of hair?” the then president asked the man.
Prosecutors argued Bolsonaro’s so-called “jokes” went beyond personal insult, constituting stigmatising offences and intolerance against the entire Black population.
The case was initially dismissed in the lower court, but on appeal the three judges unanimously convicted the former president, though they set a lower fine than the R$10m sought by prosecutors.
Alongside Bolsonaro, the Brazilian government was also ordered to pay R$1m. Both may still appeal.
The former president remains under house arrest at his mansion in Brasília for allegedly trying to intimidate supreme court justices overseeing the coup case. Barred by court order from using social media, Bolsonaro has not commented on the racism ruling.
One of his politician sons, the Rio de Janeiro councillor Carlos Bolsonaro, reposted news of the conviction with the message: “Long live democracy!”
The Bolsonaro family claims the cases against him are political persecution.
In the coup case, Bolsonaro’s lawyers may still lodge a final appeal before the supreme court decides where he will serve his sentence, which is expected to happen in October or November.
