Researcher Identifies Neo-Nazi Cell in Niterói

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The work of a cell from the racial supremacist group Ku Klux Klan in Niterói, with up to 14 members, has been singled out in a research developed by the Doctor in Social Anthropology of the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP) Adriana Dias.

The details and full numbers of the research, which will be contained in a book yet to be published, show that the group was founded approximately six years ago, is now stronger and uses forums on the Internet and the deep web to co-opt its members.

The organization was founded in Niterói over the same period that five men attacked a northeastern Brazilian with a baseball bat in Arariboia Square in 2013, according to the researcher. They had tattoos depicting Nazi symbols.

“At that time, (they) had not yet effectively organized the Klan cell. There were only two or three people from the Hitlerite cell in Niterói who organized themselves in the period before the World Cup and the Olympics because they wanted to grow stronger in the face of what they considered a threat, which was the presence of northeasterners, blacks and immigrants from other countries coming in”.

“They were also very annoyed by the Paralympic Games, because of the handicapped, who they consider human garbage,” says Adriana Dias.

The anthropologist, who has been studying neo-Nazi and white supremacist discourse on the internet for 16 years, monitors the groups by means of programming techniques to pinpoint those who download large volumes of material on the internet, takes part in forums and social media focused on the subject or the leaders who advertise the content on the deep web.

Her research has identified up to 17 such groups in the country, including Hitlerites, Supremacists/Separatists, and Holocaust deniers, and only three Ku Klux Klan sections – the most radical – one in Niterói and two in Blumenau (SC).

Sentence in freedom

From the group arrested in 2013 at Araiboia Square – comprised of Thiago Borges Pita, 28 at the time; Carlos Luiz Bastos Neto, 33; Caio Souza Prado, 23; Davi Ribeiro Morais, 39; and Philipe Ferreira Ferro Lima, 21 – no one is living in Niterói any longer, according to the Judiciary.

They were accused of crimes of color, race, ethnicity, religion and origin intolerance; and of manufacturing, selling or broadcasting symbols, ornaments, badges or propaganda that use the swastika cross or the gammadion to spread Nazism; in addition to bodily injury, gang affiliation and the corruption of minors.

They were sentenced to three years and ten days of imprisonment in August, but they are serving their time in freedom after payment of a fine.

Source: Globo