Bolsonaro supporter desecrates Brazil beach memorial for 40,000 coronavirus victims

By Dilip -
Bolsonaristas:  “so blinded by ideological passion that they had closed their eyes to reality”
A supporter of Brazil’s far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, has desecrated a beachside memorial to Covid-19 victims as the country’s coronavirus death toll rose above 40,000. Activists from civil society group Rio de Paz dug 100 symbolic shallow graves on Copacabana beach before dawn on Thursday to represent the Brazilian lives lost. At least 40,276 people have now died, according to a coalition of news outlets which has been compiling an independent tally since Brazil’s health ministry was accused of seeking to conceal the full figures last week. 

 But the NGO’s founder, Antônio Carlos Costa said Bolsonaristas began haranging activists as they stood beside the mock cemetery. Soon after a man was filmed knocking down the wooden crosses protesters had placed in the sand near a banner reading: “Brazil, land of graves”.  “They feel such rage – and I think they’re reproducing the behaviour of the person occupying the highest position in the land,” Costa said of his group’s assailants. Among those watching the vandalism was a grieving father who campaigners said had lost his 25-year-old son to Covid-19. The man re-erected the crosses and shouted: “Respect the pain of others.”

Costa said he felt anger at the profoundly disrespectful act – the first such attack he had experienced in 13 years protesting against politicians from across the political spectrum. But he said that most of all he felt pity for the man, and other hardcore Bolsonaristas, who were “so blinded by ideological passion that they had closed their eyes to reality”....
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/11/bolsonaro-supporter-destroys-brazil-beach-memorial-40000-coronavirus-victims
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