An Argentine tourist has been imprisoned in Brazil since last Sunday after photographing a seven-year-old boy and saying he was thinking of taking him home as a “slave.” What should have been a peaceful Sunday outing for a family and that child on a tourist train in the state of Minas Gerais turned into a traumatic episode of racism that neither witnesses nor authorities overlooked.
Read more Nadia Calviño: “The European Investment Bank will decisively support the Mexico Plan”
The incident happened on May 24 on the tourist train that connects the historic cities of São João del Rei and Tiradentes, in the state of Minas Gerais. The Argentine, identified by the police as Eduardo Ignacio, 63 years old, was caught in flagrante after passengers and the victim’s family noticed the photos he took of the child and the messages he was sending through his cell phone. He sent photos of the boy via WhatsApp accompanied by messages such as “I can take him as a slave,” “I’m thinking of taking a slave, there are many here,” or “I can take a slave to take care of your granddaughters.”
The boy and the family are from Rio de Janeiro and had traveled to Minas Gerais to celebrate the birthday of the boy’s mother, a 32-year-old woman. It was the first time they had gone sightseeing outside their hometown. They boarded the train in São João del Rei, but during the journey, a passenger in the same car noticed the racist messages and alerted the mother. When confronted, the tourist tried to hide the cell phone, but under the insistence of the passengers, he ended up showing the conversation. The mother photographed the screen to have evidence of the crime.
Train workers and passengers restrained the man until the Military Police arrived and arrested him. He is now in preventive detention in a jail in São João del Rei.
In recent weeks, Brazil has detained three other foreigners for racism offenses under similar circumstances. On May 15, Chilean Germán Andrés Naranjo Maldini was arrested after making serious homophobic and racist insults against a crew member during a Latam flight, complaining that he was gay and black. He said he was bothered by “the smell of black, of Brazilian” and at another time called him “monkey,” imitating animal sounds, among other insults. His lawyers claim he had a psychotic break, has been treated since 2013, and does not remember anything. For now, he remains in preventive detention in Guarulhos (São Paulo).
Read more Five of the seven people trapped in a cave in Laos a week ago found alive
At the end of April, Argentine José Luis Haile, 67, was detained in a supermarket in Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro, after an argument in which he called the Brazilian woman in front of him in line a “black bitch.” He was subdued with the help of another Argentine, who called the police and lamented that the law in his country is more tolerant of such behavior.
The case that received the most attention was that of another Argentine, Agostina Páez, arrested in Rio in February after imitating a monkey and calling bar workers “shitty blacks.” The young woman even wore an electronic ankle bracelet and had her passport confiscated due to flight risk, although the court eventually authorized her to return to Argentina after paying a bail of 97,000 reais (almost 20,000 dollars) and she now faces the process free.
After several interviews in which she posed as a victim of persecution, upon arriving in Buenos Aires she was even received by Senator Patricia Bullrich, former Security Minister under Javier Milei. Her father celebrated that his daughter had returned home repeating the same racist gestures in a bar.
Brazil has punished racism since 1989, although in 2023 the legislation was toughened by equating the crime of racial slur (treated as an attack on an individual’s honor) with the crime of racism, when an entire group is attacked. In this way, it became a type of crime punishable by between two and five years in prison, which does not expire and cannot be avoided by paying bail.
