Brazilian Federal Police Detain Spanish Citizen At Guarulhos Airport For Racism

Brazil’s federal police detained a Spanish citizen at São Paulo’s international Guarulhos airport for racism after a LATAM airlines flight crew called police when the passenger disembarked.

“El hombre fue puesto bajo prisión preventiva por orden judicial”

A24

The Independent said the crew called police after she allegedly made racially abusive remarks directed at the workers who unload the aircraft’s baggage, and police arrested her as she disembarked.

A24

The case was framed alongside other high-profile arrests of foreign tourists for racism, including an Argentine citizen, Agostina Páez, who was filmed mimicking a monkey toward a waiter at a nightclub in Rio in January.

The Independent also tied the broader legal context to Brazil’s anti-racism rules, noting that insulting a person on the basis of race carries a penalty of imprisonment from 2 to 5 years and a fine.

The Guardian similarly described the Guarulhos detention and said the crew of a Latam flight arriving from the north-eastern city of São Luis called police, who arrested the Spanish national as she disembarked.

The Independent reported that in January police arrested Argentine citizen Agostina Páez in Rio after being filmed mimicking a monkey toward a waiter at a nightclub, and that video footage of the incident went viral.

It added that Páez was initially barred from leaving Brazil but eventually returned to Argentina in April, where images showed her meeting with Sen. Patricia Bullrich, a close ally of Argentina’s President, Javier Milei.

Clarin

The Guardian likewise said Páez eventually returned to Argentina in April and described her meeting with Patricia Bullrich, a senator in Argentina and a close ally of Javier Milei.

Both outlets also described another detention in Minas Gerais, with The Independent saying police arrested Argentine, Eduardo Ignacio Murias, in May after he allegedly photographed and filmed a young child without authorization and shared the images accompanied by racist messages in Spanish.

The Guardian reported that G1 said on 17 June a court indicted Murias, who remains in pre-trial detention, and it also described a May arrest of a Chilean citizen for racial and homophobic slurs against crew members on a flight between Guarulhos and Frankfurt.

The Independent said Brazil’s anti-racism framework includes protections enshrined in the 1988 constitution and described how Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva sanctioned a law in January 2023 that equated racial insults to the crime of racism.

“An employee of a Spanish hotel arrested for racism: Walid Regragui, Morocco's head coach, decides to forgive him during Ramadan”

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It quoted Irapuã Santana, a lawyer specializing in anti-racism and a professor at the Getulio Vargas Foundation, saying, “Social movements played a very important role in ensuring that the Black population was recognized in the 1988 constitution,” which outlaws racism.

The Guardian echoed the penalty range for racist insults and described the airline response, saying the airline company said there was no justification for the aggression directed at its employees and condemned all forms of racism and discrimination.

In the same broader pattern of racism cases, Clarin reported that Venezuelan Luis David Martínez and Colombian Cristian Rodríguez were detained in Brazil after racist gestures and that they now face a criminal case.

Clarin further stated that the players now face up to five years in prison for their gestures and remarks and that the ATP ordered that the prize money be withdrawn from the two players for reaching the quarterfinals, about $1,600.