Rio Prosecutor’s Office Calls for Suspension of Decree Opening Religious Temples
RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The city’s decision authorizes the reopening of religious temples with the adoption of a number of measures such as the mandatory use of masks, the availability of alcohol 70% on the church grounds and maintaining two meters distance between congregants.
The Rio de Janeiro mayoralty decision requires those congregants who are part of risk groups, not to take part in the celebrations in person.
“The decision stems from an exercise of pondering between the fundamental social right to health, specifically threatened by the rapid spread of the virus and the risk of a collapse of the health system should face-to-face activities involving crowds be maintained, as well as the fundamental right to worship, from which the need to suspend only temporarily its exercise in person is reached, involving the presence of the public, favoring distance methods, to which the whole society has been currently adapting due to the pandemic”, says an excerpt of the petition.
The document, signed by prosecutors Tiago Gonçalves Veras Gomes, Anna Carolina Vieira Lisboa Fernandes, and Gláucia Maria da Costa Santana, alleges that the Rio City Hall failed to provide expert data to prove that the reopening of churches would not pose a risk to congregants. The prosecutors say that reopening at this time could have catastrophic and damaging consequences on the right to health of churchgoers.
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