Brazilian comedian sentenced to 8 years in prison for jokes

A court in São Paulo, Brazil, sentenced 42-year-old Brazilian comedian Léo Lins on Tuesday to eight years and three months in prison for defamation and inciting hate speech during a comedy show.

The charges were based on a stand-up comedy performance in Curitiba in 2022, in which Lins targeted various minority groups and vulnerable communities. The show was later uploaded to YouTube, where it quickly went viral and the statements were taken completely out of context.

Léo Lins is known in the Portuguese-speaking comedy scene for his politically incorrect, often biting humour. He has a large online following: more than 3 million followers on Instagram and over 1.5 million YouTube subscribers.

In front of an audience of about 4,000 people, Lins made jokes during the performance in question that targeted elderly people, Black and Indigenous Brazilians, people with HIV, the LGBTQ+ community, evangelical Christians, Jews, people with disabilities – and he also referenced paedophilia in his comedy act.

The video of this show was viewed over 3 million times and caused a wave of public outrage due to what critics described as offensive and discriminatory content. In May 2023, a court ordered YouTube to remove the video, and now the comedian must also serve eight years in prison. Racism has been a criminal offence in Brazil since the 1950s.

(FVDV – Source: Brazil Reports – Illustration: Léo Lins)