Brazilian comedian jailed for eight years for offensive jokes

A comedian has been jailed for a stand-up routine that made fun of fat people, black people, indigenous people, and gay people among a wide range of targets. Photo / APN

A Brazilian comedian has been sentenced to more than eight years in prison for telling offensive jokes.

Leo Lins was found guilty of inciting intolerance with a 2022 stand-up routine that made fun of black people, indigenous people, fat people, gay people, Jews, evangelicals, disabled people, and those with HIV.

During the performance, which was uploaded to YouTube and has more than three million views, Lins told a 4000-strong crowd in Curitiba, in southern Brazil: “Prejudice, to me, is a primitive thing that shouldn’t exist any more. Just like indigenous people. Enough already.”

Wearing a bright red shirt and yellow trousers, he warned the audience that he “jokes about everything and everyone”.

He told them: “What show could be more inclusive? I even hired a sign language interpreter just to be able to offend the deaf-mute.”

However, a judge in the Sao Paulo state criminal court last week found that his act amounted to “practising” or “inciting” racism and religious intolerance, as well as being discriminatory towards disabled people.

Judge Barbara de Lima Iseppi said that “freedom of expression is not absolute nor unlimited” and “when there is a confrontation between the fundamental precept of liberty of expression and the principles of human dignity and judicial equality, the latter should win out”.

The judge imposed a total jail sentence of eight years and three months, which Lins intends to appeal against.

Lins’ targets were not limited to minorities and those with disabilities.

“I’m totally against paedophilia – I’m more in favour of incest,” he told the audience, who roared with laughter throughout the set. “If you’re going to abuse a child, abuse your own. What’s he going to do? Tell his dad?”

The comedian remains free pending the appeal, and continues to post messages and videos to his more than 4.5 million followers on social media.

This week, he posted a photograph of his “prison kit”, which included a packet of cigarettes and a pair of handcuffs.

His legal team has described the sentence as a threat to freedom of speech and an attempt to “criminalise comedy”.

“It seems like people have lost the ability to interpret the obvious,” said Lins.

“We’re living through one of the biggest epidemics of our time: rational blindness.

“Judgments are now based entirely on emotion – no one listens any more, they only want to impose their own truth.”

On top of the prison sentence, he has been ordered to pay a fine of 300,000 reais ($90,000) in collective moral damages.

Brazil has had anti-hate speech laws on the books for years, but has only recently begun to aggressively enforce them.

The Washington Post reported that Jamil Assis of the Sivis Institute, a Brazilian free speech think- tank, said there had been an increase in “modern judges” who were removing protections historically granted to satirical speech.

Lins’ conviction has been criticised by sections of Brazilian society, including journalists, free speech advocates, conservative politicians and other comedians.

But others have defended the decision to jail him.

Fabio de Sa Cesnik, a lawyer with the Brazilian law firm CQS/F, told the Folha de S.Paulo newspaper that there must be some limits on free speech.

“Harming the dignity of someone else is equally important,” he said.