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Openly Gay Brazilian Politician Flees Country After Death Threats
Another openly gay politician was murdered in the country last year.
Brazil’s second openly gay member of parliament has fled both his job and his country due a series of escalating death threats and violence in Brazil.
Jean Wyllys was re-elected for a third term in October, but left to travel Europe, and has now announced he is not returning.
“This environment isn’t safe for me,” he told the newspaper Folha de São Paola. “Why would I want to live four years of my life in an armored car with bodyguards? Four years of my life when I can’t just go where I want to go?”
Receiving death threats was not a new experience for Wyllys, but he began to take them more seriously after a gay friend and political ally, Marielle Franco, was shot and killed last March.
It is now being reported that the suspects in Franco’s murder have ties to Flávio Bolsonaro, the son of the newly-elected anti-gay Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro.
“I am terrified that the president’s son hired the hitman’s wife and mother in his office,” Wyllys said. “The president who has always slandered me, who has always insulted me openly, who has always used homophobia against me.”
Wyllys has also said that members of his family, including his mother and siblings, have been threatened because of his political career.
“I do not want to sacrifice myself,” he admitted, saying it’s time he took all the threats against him seriously.
The councilman who will replace Wyllys, David Miranda, is also an openly gay man.
Rachel Kiley is presumably a writer and definitely not a terminator. She can usually be found crying over queerbaiting in the Pitch Perfect franchise or on Twitter, if not both.
Rachel Kiley is presumably a writer and definitely not a terminator. She can usually be found crying over queerbaiting in the Pitch Perfect franchise or on Twitter, if not both.
