Marcelo Freixo


Marcelo Ribeiro Freixo is a Brazilian leftist politician, broadcaster and professor. He is a state representative for the Socialism and Liberty Party, and is chairman of the Defence of Human Rights and Citizenship Commission on the Rio de Janeiro Legislative Assembly.
Freixo gained national attention when he presided over a parliamentary inquiry commission on police militias in Rio de Janeiro, having a character inspired on him in the Brazilian film , directed by José Padilha.
He ran for mayor of Rio de Janeiro twice, in 2012 and 2016, having as vice-mayor candidate on the ticket in 2016 the lawyer and professor at UFRJ Luciana Boiteux. He ended in second in both the run-offs, losing the first to Eduardo Paes from PMDB, and the second to the PRB candidate Marcelo Crivella.

Controversy

In 2014, Rede Bandeirantes' cameraman Santiago Ilídio Andrade died due to a rocket thrown at a PSOL protest in Rio de Janeiro. Fábio Raposo, who admitted having passed the rocket to the man who lit the artifact that hit the cameraman, declared to the police that he had received calls from the activist Elisa Quadros, known as Sininho, and that this would have said that the suspect who lit the rocket was linked to the state deputy Marcelo Freixo.
Due to the fact that PSOL, Freixo's political party, and the party's politicians, are always defending drug release, mitigating or excluding punishment for bandits, and are always militating in slum areas dominated by drug trafficking, in addition to constant criticism against the militia but there is no criticism of drug trafficking, there are claims that PSOL members are linked to Comando Vermelho.
PSOL, the party under Freixo's command, is also accused of Marxist ideological indoctrination and carrying out illegal political propaganda within universities and public schools, having even founded an illegal party nucleus inside Colégio Pedro II, one of the most famous in the city of Rio de Janeiro. The National Museum of Brazil, which burned because of its precarious administration, was under the administration of UFRJ, whose rector is affiliated with PSOL.
Marcelo Freixo was even called "defender of bandits", due to his style of thinking: for he defends extrication and amnesty for bandits, without providing a solution to the problem of crime; for criticizing a notorious thug being beaten up on a pole, but not criticizing when the MST beat up a policemen stuck to a pole; or having said that, to combat bandits and violence, the solution was to increase public lighting.