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Sometimes the journalist does not miss the facts, but fails them due to lack of clarity. It was our case. We used the quotation marks to indicate the figurative spirit, but part of the audience interpreted it as a literal use of the expression, as if we had copied and pasted of the case file. We made mistakes by not leaving even clearer in the body of the text that the expression “guilty violation” did not appear in the record, but was an interpretation of what the prosecutor defended in his final arguments. We also don’t take into account that most people read just the headline. When we realized that this second reading was getting controversial, we changed the text at 9:45 pm on Tuesday, and pointed it to the end of the story, as any serious vehicle should.
Meanwhile, the “guilty rape” had taken on a life of its own, turning the report into the center of the debate that really matters: the safety of women. Outraged, millions of them saw there, in that expression, the summary of the horror that before they could not explain. As the writer Sérgio Rodrigues recorded, “the legally non-existent figure of ‘guilty rape’ caused initial confusion, before it revealed itself to be illuminating. (…) It hit because it makes a brief parody of Brazilian structural misogyny ”. The journalist Reinaldo Azevedo used another rhetorical figure to define: “violation by merit.”
Intercept’s expression perfectly sums up how Brazilian justice handles many rape cases. All the elements and evidence are given, but the judge understands that the woman does not deserve justice because she was not even more explicit about not giving her consent during the episode. The expression captured a collective mute sentiment and gave voice to those who could not even speak.
“As a researcher in legal anthropology specializing in violence against girls and women, it was with regret, but not surprise, that I received the report and the resulting discussion on ‘guilty rape.’ In various situations throughout almost ten years of field research among justice professionals, rights activists, legislators and women in situations of violence, I found discourses, uses and rhetoric that put into practice the idea of ’culpable rape’ ”. , wrote in Marie Claire Beatriz Accioly Lins, Doctor in Social Anthropology from the University of São Paulo and researcher at the Center for Studies on Social Markers of Difference of the Faculty of Philosophy, Letters and Human Sciences of USP.
Branca Vianna, creator and host of the great podcast Praia dos Ossos, which recovers the trial for the murder of Ângela Diniz, summed up well the case of Mariana Ferrer: “It is very rare that it is a rape case in which you have so many elements like those that Mariana managed to meet. She went to the police, they did a body exam, DNA, messages to friends, and still, he was not convicted. This is very scary. Every woman is afraid of rape and most have had at least one moment in their lives when they felt that real fear. With that sentence, fear increases a lot ”.
In rape cases, there is a strong case in court that the word of the victim has a lot of evidence. A judgment of the Court of Justice of Santa Catarina (precisely the state where the Mariana case occurred) used as a precedent in other judgments of the same Court says: “In the crime of rape, usually practiced in secrecy, the word of the When the victim is exempt from hatred or with the intention of harming the accused, it assumes relevant probative value, since it is she who can best indicate the fact, in its smallest details, and identify the repressive agent, ”wrote Judge Roberto Lucas Pacheco, in 2014. Mariana Ferrer has her word and her evidence, but she still does not have a fair trial.
The case had two prosecutors. The first, Alexandre Piazza, considered that there was sufficient evidence for Aranha to answer for the rape of a vulnerable woman, who could not give her consent. In addition to Mariana’s word, there is evidence to support the accusation: DNA test, hymen rupture, blood, messages and the testimony of the Uber driver who took her home. In the middle of the process, Piazza dropped the case. The new prosecutor, Thiago Carriço de Oliveira, upon taking office, disagreed with his colleague and said that the defendant had no way of knowing whether or not Mariana could give her consent.
If the thesis of the first prosecutor prevailed, Aranha could be sentenced for rape of vulnerable persons. In Carriço’s thesis, if there was an eventual violation, it was without deception. Carriço wrote: “If confusion about age can eliminate cunning [em caso de relações com menores de 14 anos que pareçam ter mais idade do que isso]Why not apply the same interpretation to someone who is related to a person of legal age, whose alleged disability is unknown? ”. Without the element of deception, Aranha was acquitted for lack of evidence.
The story shocked prosecutor Valéria Scarance. “In my lawsuits, I never found this thesis that the defendant did not know that the victim was vulnerable at the time of the act,” he told HuffPost. Coordinator of the Gender Center of the Public Ministry of São Paulo, adds: “There are some judges in which the accused alleges that he did not know that the victim was under 14 years of age, for example, but in other cases of vulnerability, I have never seen him “. To solidify his thesis, Carriço mentions two authors in the field. One of them is Rogério Greco, former attorney general, evangelical pastor and member of Anajure, who has the support of Bolsonaro and has already had Damares Alves on his staff. Greco debates the legalization of torture in Brazil.
Capturing a popular sentiment in just two words is the foundation of what we do every day at Intercept: investigate, inform and interpret. Much of the press is often limited to reproducing verbatim quotes from authorities. This journalism also has its space, but we row in another direction.
We seek to chew what is hidden behind the technical vocabulary, the bureaucratic language, often sculpted to complicate the reading and hide the true intentions of the authorities behind a sophisticated play on words. Who would mobilize to go out into the streets – there will be protests in many cities this weekend thanks to the case we have exposed – if we report that André Aranha was acquitted for things like “typographical error, Article 20 of the Penal Code”?
Without the term “guilty rape,” the debate would never have gotten to where it came from. Aranha’s acquittal, by the way, had already appeared in the headlines almost a month ago, and there was no mobilization. The story, when told by the Intercept, blew all the bubbles. Thanks to the insightful reading of the reporter Schirlei Alves, we were able to discover a sophisticated mechanism of oppression carried out by powerful people who maintain oppressive and archaic structures. This is one of Intercept Brasil’s missions.
For the jurist Lênio Streck, the sentence should be annulled: “As I said, the problem in this case is different, because there is an inescapable nullity: the way in which the ‘interrogation’ of the victim was presented. I say interrogation because it seemed to me, at that moment, that it was she who was suffering all the hardships of the criminal process as a defendant ”. He called the case “moral violation”, in obviously figurative language.
The traditional press, which makes it a sport to ignore most of our complaints, jumped on the boat. Folha did not hesitate to put “guilty rape” in a headline. The National Jornal also took charge of the expression.
The story also went viral, of course, because the video is disgusting. The images are unappealable: Aranha’s lawyer humiliates Mariana in an attempt to show that if his client ran the red light it was because he asked when he was wearing sexy clothes in the photos. We portray him compiling the most shocking moments of the disgusting attack of the lawyer Cláudio Gastão da Rosa Filho during Mariana’s testimony, which lasted, in total, 45 minutes.
But everything that generates tens of millions of visits is annoying and generates collateral debates. The Public Ministry of Santa Catarina, on the defensive, was uncomfortable with the public accusations about the lethargy of the prosecutor Thiago Carriço de Oliveira in the face of the attacks against Mariana. The MP falsely accused us of tampering with the video, saying that Carriço, in the entirety of the footage, “presents countless more interruptions” against the lawyer’s brutal attacks. Let’s put that lie aside and stick to the facts.
During the 45 minutes in which Mariana Ferrer is humiliated by the lawyer, Carriço only speaks at 34 minutes and 39 seconds. At that moment he intervenes, not to defend Mariana, but to get her attention. Prosecutor Carriço affirms that the hearing “was fine.” The prosecutor continues, berating Mariana for questioning the quality of the experience in her case. And, Carriço adds, Mariana’s lawsuit is “the only vague defendant’s case being examined during the pandemic,” which implies privilege. The judge thanks you. If the MPSC sees this as an interruption to defend Mariana, something is wrong.
If there is any type of complaint that can be made, it is that we have not put all the attacks against Mariana in our summary. Estadão posted other moments of humiliation when he received the full video, and found no vigorous reaction from Carriço against the lawyer. Because it just never existed that day.
The impact of the text and the video could help change the course of the case and the Brazilian legislation.
A group of deputies, outraged by the video, wants to create a law to make “institutional violence” a crime, exactly as in the case of Mariana Ferrer. Another rape victim who also says she is offended by lawyer Gastão da Rosa warned Veja that the country needs to take advantage of the discussion surrounding the case to humanize the system for receiving rape victims. “This happens with many Marianas. After the rape, a man examined my body. At the police station, the psychologist asked me if I had experienced an orgasm. Then he asked me why I was crying when he heard that my hymen had broken. I was just a 13-year-old boy. “
In the midst of so much pain, we are encouraged to realize the bond that was formed around this simple and powerful idea: if a woman is raped, it will never be her fault, much less can we consent to the thesis that someone can commit a sexual act without being fully sure that the woman consented. There is no guilty violation.
Over the years, the outdated legislation of the 1940s, which has always treated women as second-class people, has been enhanced with innovations such as the Maria da Penha Law (2006), Rape of the Vulnerable (2009 ), Femicide Law (2015) and Sexual Importance (2018). None of that existed in the codes, but the codes should reflect life out there, not the other way around. When journalism informs and, at the same time, vocalizes a social sentiment to the point of causing a transformation, it is winning. At least Intercept journalism. Or, as we always say around here: if you don’t bother anyone, it’s useless.
