Lindolfo Kosmaski, 25, ran to be a councillor in 2020. The movement sees this as a hate crime
The body of Lindolfo Kosmaski, an LGBT activist who worked with the MST landless movement was found burnt on Saturday night (1st May), in the municipality of São João do Triunfo, in Paraná, Brazil. The movement believes that the homicide was motivated by homophobia.
Kosmaski, 25, ran as a PT candidate to be a councillor in São João do Triunfo in 2020. Involved in movement activities, particularly the Landless LGBT Collective and the Agroecology Days, he was an activist who spent time at the Contestado settlement, in Lapa, also in Paraná, where he participated in the Degree in Education in the Countryside at the Latin American School of Agroecology (ELAA).
At the time of his death, he was a teacher in the Paraná state network, and he was studying for a masters at the Federal University of Paraná (UFPR), in the Science and Mathematics Education programme.
In a statement, the movement mourned the death of Kosmaski. “At this painful time, the MST extends its solidarity to his family and friends, and demands that the bodies responsible move quickly to investigate and find those responsible for this heinous crime.”
In the same document, the movement states that it will demand justice and punishment for the young man’s murderers. “The MST underlines its commitment to fight for a society without LGBT phobia, and to build a world in which life and all ways of being and loving are fully protected. The blood of LGBT people is also the blood of the Landless.”
By Igor Carvalho, first published in Brasil de Fato | São Paulo (SP) | on 02 May 2021
