The university claims the group provoked the students and was responsible for causing the confusion; The movement says its aim was to ‘remove graffiti glorifying violence’
Members of Free Brazil Movement (MB extension) and students from Federal University of Paraná (FOPR) clashed last Friday, September 1, inside one of the institute’s campuses, at Curitiba, state capital. On Wednesday 6, the FOPR used social networks to assert, on the basis of monitoring images and recordings made by MBL himself, that the group was responsible for provoking the students and creating confusion.
The conflict allegedly broke out because the MBL wanted to paint white the walls of the Academic Center of the History course, which, according to the group, had been vandalized and with leftist political messages: “We found graffiti of communism, anarchism, satanic symbols and the face of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un,” the Brasil Livre Movement said, in response to questions raised by the report.
The FOPR alleges that the MBL filmed students and university facilities without permission and caused student confusion. He also says that the group, in a statement to the police, gave a different version of what the institute’s monitoring cameras show.
In excerpts from the police report, presented in the university video, the protesters say they were “chased” by the students around the campus. However, the FOPR maintains that the information is false and that MBL members persisted in making fun of the students, calling them “vagrants”.
What happened?
Seven members of the MBL, and a security guard hired by the group, entered the university building on Friday morning where the UFPR’s Humanities and Philosophy courses are held. In a video posted by the group, member Gabriel Costenaro says they were in the unit because they “wanted to talk to students about the vagrancy they advocate.”
In addition to Costenaro, the event was also attended by MBL members Matheus Faustino and João Victor Mattos Bettega. None of the seven MBL members involved in the confusion are college students.
The report revealed that, being a public space, entry to the UFPR is free, without the presence of turnstiles, and the place where the confusion occurred was in the D. Pedro I building, where the lessons of the courses of Literature and Philosophy. .
Inside the university, MBL members entered the History Course Academic Center on the 6th floor on the grounds that there were reports of looting of space and with messages and political figures alluding to the left.
Due to the presence of protesters in the Academic Center, students also entered the room. While the MBL members were filming, the students said they refused to be registered under the General Data Protection Act. According to the FOPR, security guards also tried to block the recordings, but the protesters insisted on recording the images.
In the video released by the university, we see that partner Gabriel Costenaro even climbs onto a table with a spray can in his hand and says to the students, in a threatening tone: “Take it”. The following scenes show a series of jostling between the people involved.
Members of the Free Brazil Movement even ran up the ramps of the building towards the exit. Monitoring images released by the FOPR show one of the members sneezing a liquid into a student’s face with an aerosol can.
Once outside the university, the MBL and the university students continued their discussion at the corner of via XV de Novembro and via Dr. Fraire. They even collided and, according to the university, one student “was thrown to the ground with injuries”.
Also according to the FOPR, an employee even received a punch in the stomach when, still inside the building, she approached to understand the confusion. But she, out of fear of her, preferred not to report it to the police and she was unable to say from which person the attack came, or if it was intentional. Both students and protesters made statements to police after the incident.
“Terribly serious situation”, says the rector of the UFPR
“It is a tremendously serious situation because it affects not only the UFPR, but all public universities”, said the rector of the university, Ricardo Marcelo Fonseca, referring to similar actions recently carried out by the MBL in other public educational institutions, such as the Federal University University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC) and University of São Paulo (USP).
“The fact that we are public institutions does not mean that they are spaces without rules and without law, subject to any form of snowfall and aggression,” Fonseca said. “We are taking various measures at the UFPR, but I believe it is necessary that the seriousness of this problem transcends the individual reactions of the institutions,” added the dean.
The MBL denounces stalking
The MBL says the spray threats were issued in response to an attempt to take over the cell phone of one of its members. “When they tried to steal Bettega’s cell phone and attack our members (images that the UFPR did not show), the reaction was to use the spray as a defense, because we didn’t want a physical confrontation,” replied the group at the question of the spokesperson. relationship.
The MBL also claimed that the spray was not pepper spray, as the FOPR claims, but “white paint”. “The intention was to remove the graffiti advocating violence. In fact we didn’t spray any walls.”
Regarding the scene showing a group member spraying the ramp, MBL states that “before the second shot of Costenaro in the hallway with the spray, a student tried to hit Bettega with another spray of paint on the stairs.” (we have photos to prove this claim). At that point, we were running away and were afraid of being cornered and beaten.”
Regarding the commotion on the street, the group claims that “a group of about 20 people chased us off campus”, that a “girl tried to steal Matheus Faustino’s cell phone” and that, “after the incident, the students they chased MBL to intimidate and assault”.
In a note of support for the UFPR, the Brazilian Society for the Advancement of Science (SBPC) states that “it awaits measures from the authorities, in the sense of making the invaders accountable and avoiding the repetition of this type of conduct, which offends the community values with which the academic world is founded in Brazil and in the world.”
OR Estadao contacted the Paraná Civil Police, but received no response.
Source: Terra
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