PT councilor in Campinas receives death threats via email and files a police report

This Monday, the 6th, Campinas councilor Paolla Miguel (PT) filed a police report after receiving death threats, racist and homophobic insults via email. The attack was sent to the City Council and the offices of several councilors by the author, who claims that he will kill “councilwoman Paolla and carry out a massacre in the City Council”. The complaint registered the crime of racial or color prejudice at the São Paulo Civil Police Electronic Station.

In the email, to which the Estadão had access, the author calls Paolla a “monkey”, “slum dweller”, and says that the parliamentarian “uses public money to throw parties for LGBT freaks” who “deserve death”. In addition to the racist insults directed at the councilor, councilors Major Jaime (União), Permínio Monteiro (PSB), Higor Diego (Republicans), Cecílio Santos (PT) and Guida Calixto (PT), all black, were also targets of the threats. The sender identifies himself with the name of another person who has already had their data stolen to commit hate crimes on the internet.

Throughout the text, various types of violence are mentioned that the author intends to commit if Paolla does not resign from her mandate. He claims to live in Rio de Janeiro, is a beneficiary of the Bolsa Família Program, and is angry because the councilor “earns a fortune”. In addition to threatening to burn down the Chamber and kill all parliamentarians and advisors, “except Nelson Hossri”, from the PSD, the sender says that the Chamber is a “place of good white men” that has been transformed into a “zoo”.

When quoting Hossri again, the author of the message thanks the parliamentarian for his effort and his supposed “support” in the “mission”. When contacted, the councilor told the Estadão that the situation “is absurd” and that it repudiates “criminal threats”. Hossri stated that he will also file a police report and declared that his debate is “limited to the ideological political field” and that he does not, “under any circumstances, condone these criminal and personal threats.”

Called “communist, black and dyke”, Paolla classified the threat as “very serious” and said that she asked “the President of the House to reinforce the security of the Chamber building”. “A message of extremist and terrorist hate that announces an armed massacre against me and other black parliamentarians in our city,” she wrote in an official note published on Instagram.

The PT member also cites an event that took place in 2021 in which she was called “trash black” – a term present in the email – by a supporter “of the extreme right in the Plenary”. For Paolla, normalizing situations like these “empowers and encourages hate groups that commit threatening attitudes” and, therefore, it is necessary to seek “all possible means” to guarantee the safety of the attacked councilors.

The parliamentarian also said that the situation “requires a lot of coolness and attention” and that she is not surprised, since “an unfounded complaint was recently made in the Chamber” against her mandate, referring to the disciplinary process opened in the House that could lead to impeachment of the councilor.

The motivator for the process was the allocation of funds to the organization of the event known as Lambuzada, which had repercussions due to the presentations with erotic and nude scenes. Because of the content considered “absurd”, state deputy Rafael Zimbaldi (Cidadania-SP) sent a request to investigate the case to the Public Ministry of São Paulo. In a statement, Paolla stated that she had no prior knowledge of the content of the presentations and that the producer would be responsible.