Simone Tebet Sues Bolsonaro Son for 'Political Violence Against Women'

A Brazilian regional court has ordered the immediate removal of a social media video published by Eduardo Bolsonaro after the prominent Senate candidate Simone Tebet filed a criminal complaint for political violence against women. The ruling, delivered by the São Paulo Regional Electoral Court (TRE-SP), comes just days before the first-round election, highlighting the increasingly fraught and often toxic climate of the current campaign.

The controversy began when former Federal Deputy Eduardo Bolsonaro—son of former President Jair Bolsonaro—posted a video on Instagram in which he called Tebet a "vassal of Lula" and insinuated that she "prostitutes herself for office, ministry, and so on". Tebet, a center-left politician and former Minister of Planning and Budget in the current administration, responded by calling Bolsonaro a "coward" and asserting that she would not be intimidated, confirming her campaign filed a criminal complaint with the Electoral Prosecutor's Office.

The TRE-SP, the regional body responsible for electoral oversight in São Paulo, ruled on Tuesday that the comment "extrapolated the limits of the freedom of expression" by attacking the candidate’s honor with "sexist content". The court ordered the social media platform to delete the post within 24 hours or face a daily fine. The judicial intervention underscores the severity with which Brazil's electoral system is treating gendered abuse in politics, which has been legally defined and criminalized as a specific form of political violence.

The exchange was triggered by a political disagreement over the withdrawal of a third candidate from the São Paulo Senate race. Bolsonaro claimed the move was an act of patriotism to consolidate the right-wing vote, while Tebet had suggested the withdrawing candidate "surrendered to the Centrão" (the influential centrist bloc in Congress). Bolsonaro's response, using explicitly sexualized language to attack a female political rival, mirrors a history of such comments from the Bolsonaro family, including a similar incident involving Tebet in 2021. The incident draws international attention to the surge in gender-based political abuse in Brazilian elections.

The ruling is final for the social media platform, which must comply with the order to remove the video. However, the criminal complaint for political violence against women now moves forward in the electoral justice system. For the Brazil election, the incident ensures that the issue of political harassment and the increasing toxicity of public debate remain central themes in the final stretch of the campaign.