The World Socialist Web Site and the Socialist Equality Group (GSI) of Brazil vehemently denounce the criminal conviction of José Maria de Almeida—“Zé Maria”—president of the Unified Socialist Workers Party (PSTU), to two years in prison on a charge of supposed racism for criticizing the Palestinian genocide carried out by the Zionist State of Israel. The sentence handed down by Judge Massimo Palazzolo constitutes a judicial fraud and a grave attack on democratic rights and freedom of expression in Brazil.
The basis for the conviction is a speech delivered by Zé Maria at a protest in São Paulo on October 22, 2023—two weeks after the beginning of the genocidal bombing of Gaza. In the speech, he declared that “every act of force, every act of violence by the Palestinian people against Zionism is legitimate,” defending the end of the Zionist state and “a secular, democratic Palestine, from the Jordan River to the sea.” For these words, the Israelite Confederation of Brazil (Conib) and the Israelite Federation of the State of São Paulo (Fisesp) filed charges with the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office, accusing him of “disseminating racial hatred” and preaching “the expulsion of Jews from their ancestral land.” Judge Palazzolo accepted the accusation, asserting that Zé Maria’s remarks had a “degrading, generalizing and prejudicial content” against both the “Jewish community” and the “Zionist movement”—fraudulently equating criticism of Zionism with an attack on the Jewish people.
The case is a politically motivated fabrication and an assault on the political conscience of millions of workers and young people in Brazil and around the world.
The PSTU has announced that it will appeal the decision to the Federal Regional Court of the 3rd Region. In an official statement, the party characterized the conviction as devoid of “any historical, political or legal foundation,” denounced the proceedings as “a campaign of persecution and judicial harassment” mounted by Zionist organizations, and reaffirmed its “unconditional defense of the Palestinian people, against the genocide and for the end of the Zionist, racist and colonialist State of Israel.”
A campaign orchestrated by the far right
This conviction is not an isolated incident. It is the most serious development to date in a systematic campaign, driven by Conib and Fisesp in coordination with far-right forces, to suppress left-wing speech in Brazil under the pretext of combating antisemitism.
Shortly after the outbreak of Israel’s war against Palestine in October 2023, these and other Jewish organizations in Latin America attempted, without success, to censor Roger Waters’ “This is Not a Drill” tour. His shows in Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Chile, filled with references to the genocide in Gaza and denunciations of the imperialist powers, drew tens of thousands of people.
In December 2023, Conib filed a complaint with the Federal Police against journalist Breno Altman, founder of Opera Mundi, over posts made on October 7, itself an action that the TRF-3 suspended in March 2026, recognizing that the matter concerned political opinion protected by freedom of expression. In July 2024, Rui Costa Pimenta and Francisco Weiss Muniz, of the Workers’ Cause Party (PCO), were also summoned to give testimony to the Federal Police in an investigation into “intolerance and/or racial slander,” again at Conib’s instigation.
The Zé Maria case is the first to result in a criminal conviction. And the composition of the proceedings exposes its political character: Conib and Fisesp registered as assistants to the prosecution with six attorneys, and among their witnesses was Fernando Kasinski Lottemberg—former president of Conib and current Commissioner of the Organization of American States for the Monitoring of Antisemitism—a position created in 2021 with the explicit purpose of promoting the adoption of the IHRA (International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance) definition of antisemitism in countries throughout the region. This definition is precisely the one that fraudulently equates criticism of the State of Israel with antisemitism.
Conib is not a legitimate representative of the Brazilian Jewish community. It is a platform for the fascistic far right and its conspiracies against democracy in the country. Having promoted Jair Bolsonaro’s candidacy in 2017, Conib gathered at its most recent convention in November 2025 the alternative far-right candidates Tarcísio de Freitas, Ronaldo Caiado and Cláudio Castro.
An international phenomenon
What is happening in Brazil is not a local aberration: it is part of an international process of criminalization of opposition to the genocide in Gaza and to imperialism. In the United States, the Trump administration has promoted the revocation of visas of international students, the detention of pro-Palestine activists and the opening of investigations at dozens of universities—all under the banner of “combating antisemitism.” In Britain, Keir Starmer’s Labour government has proscribed the group Palestine Action as a terrorist organization, arresting more than 3,300 people for protests in solidarity with Palestine. In Australia, Queensland police detained demonstrators for using the slogan “From the River to the Sea,” classified as “hate speech.” In Argentina, Alejandro Bodart, a leader of the MST, faced criminal proceedings for posts in which he called Israel a “racist and genocidal State”—a case whose legal foundation was, once again, the IHRA definition.
The aim of this entire campaign is to silence not only opposition to the genocide in Gaza, but all the attacks unleashed by the global ruling elite against the social and democratic rights of the international working class. The current US-Israeli war against Iran will without a doubt intensify the global capitalist crisis—and with it, the mobilizations of youth and workers against all its consequences: inflation, austerity and militarism.
The GSI, notwithstanding its political differences with the PSTU, fully defends its political rights and demands the immediate dismissal of Zé Maria’s conviction and of all related proceedings. We call on Brazilian workers and youth to oppose this attack on fundamental democratic liberties.