For a long time, the Jewish community in Brazil has been trying to arrest Tofrani de Hora Lawrence, a Christian pastor in Rio de Janeiro, who systematically and regularly incites against Jews and incorporates shocking antisemitic statements during his sermons.
In June 2021, a video was published in "Israel Today" in which the priest was seen shouting in front of dozens of worshipers in the church of Jericho Jesus Christo in the city "Massacre of the Jews God, beat them with your sword, because they left you. They went with prostitutes "Lie. God, you must do what you did in World War II again."
Following these serious remarks the police raided the antisemitic church and an investigation was opened against the priest but the judge did not agree to issue a detention order against him due to the corona plague.
It was clarified that in the future it will be possible to submit a similar request and arrest the pastor, at the request of Ricardo Sidi, the lawyer of "CONIB", the Association of Jewish Communities in Brazil.
The arrest of the antisemitic pastor // Photo: Ricardo Sidi
In the early hours of this morning (Thursday), the priest's arrest operation was launched.
At around six in the morning, armed policemen raided the church and led the pastor to custody, on suspicion of a series of serious antisemitic remarks and suspicion of incitement.
The evidence that led to the pastor's arrest was provided by members of the Jewish community, who happily received the news of his arrest.
Ricardo Sidi, who was detained, said outside the church that "anti-Semitic crimes are rampant around the world. Anti-Semitism is coming out of hiding in a way that has not been seen for a long time. The country's laws need to be tougher. Brazil needs its anti-racism legislation tougher. "Whoever commits a hate crime that endangers the Jews so much. We in the Jewish Association have hundreds of lawsuits against these people, but it is very difficult to put them in prison."
"Regarding this pastor, we have gathered a lot of evidence that this pastor has been involved for more than ten years in spreading anti-Semitism and inciting his church believers - both to commit acts of hatred and acts of violence, especially in recent months. We can celebrate, "Sidi asked for an unusual request from the local police chief ahead of the operation, but unfortunately was not answered:" I asked the police chief to call the police operation 'Am Yisrael Chai' but he said it could not be done. He decided to call the operation "freedom" due to freedom of belief "Freedom of speech and finally - freedom for Jews."
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