Agostina Paés, tourist Argentine woman indicted for racial slur, was arrested this Friday (6). It was located in Vargem Pequena, in the Southwest Zone of Rio de Janeiro.
The arrest occurred after an order was issued by the State Court, after investigations by the PCERJ (Civil Police of the State of Rio de Janeiro) had taken place.
According to the Police, the criminal conduct was recorded on video by the victim himself and confirmed after analyzing security camera images.
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According to the official, the confusion began after an argument over an alleged billing error of the account. To clarify the situation, he went to check the security camera images and asked the woman to wait at the scene.
It was at that moment that, according to the employee’s report, the tourist started using racist insults. The man decided to record the scene and, in the images, the woman appears imitating monkey gestures and making monkey sounds towards him. As soon as they became aware of the case, agents began searching to locate the suspect.
In testimony, the Argentine declared that the gestures were a joke aimed at her friends and stated that she had no intention of addressing the employee. In the recordings, it is possible to identify the use of the term “mono”, a Spanish word that means “monkey”in addition to the reproduction of gestures associated with the animal.
On January 17th, the tourist had her passport seized by order of the Rio de Janeiro Court and as a precautionary measure, she started using . “I’m trapped, scared. In Brazil, the crime of discrimination and racism is serious, that’s why all this happens”, the woman reported to the Argentine newspaper Info Del Estero.
