In Brazil, telling the wrong joke now carries more jail time than most white-collar crime.
Cindy Harper
A Brazilian comedian has been handed a prison sentence of over eight years for a stand-up routine, setting off a storm over the growing use of state power to penalize speech that challenges cultural taboos.
Leo Lins, known for his provocative style, was convicted by a federal court in São Paulo for allegedly promoting intolerance through jokes delivered during a live performance and later circulated widely online.
The show in question, titled Perturbador (“Disturbing”), was posted to YouTube in 2022 and had reached more than three million views before it was taken down in 2023, following a judicial order prompted by a complaint from prosecutors.
In their case, officials claimed that the material denigrated a wide swath of Brazil’s population; including Jews, people with disabilities, the elderly, gay individuals, black citizens, indigenous groups, northeastern Brazilians, those living with HIV, evangelical Christians, and others.
Citing the scale of the video’s reach and the perceived harm of its content, the court framed the ruling as a defense of “human dignity,” arguing that the right to speak freely must yield when it allegedly infringes upon this principle.
The judgment labeled Lins’s comedy as “verbal violence” and claimed it contributes to a climate of social division. A financial penalty of 300,000 reais (around €54,000) was also imposed for what the court described as damage to the collective moral fabric.
Lins’s legal team swiftly denounced the sentence and announced plans to appeal. His lawyer issued a sharp rebuke of the court’s decision: “Watching a comedian receive the same punishment as someone convicted of drug trafficking, corruption, or even murder, all because of jokes told on stage, is deeply troubling.”
Among those speaking out against the verdict were fellow performers who warned that such actions risk eroding democratic freedoms under the guise of protecting sensibilities.
