Amnesty lashes 'unacceptable' head of Brazil rights panel

Amnesty International on Tuesday criticised the appointment of an evangelical pastor accused of racism and homophobia as the head of a congressional human rights panel in Brazil.

Marco Feliciano, who was elected deputy of the rightist Christian Social Democratic Party (PSC) in 2010, was elected president of the House of Deputies' commission of human rights and minorities on March 7.

Amnesty decried Feliciano's appointment as "unacceptable" due to his "clearly discriminatory stance toward the black population, homosexuals and women."

Feliciano, a 40-year-old who describes himself as a "pastor, singer and businessman" has been the subject of nationwide outrage over his various comments on race and homosexuality.

His election to the rights panel resulted from negotiations between various parties within the ruling coalition formed around President Dilma Rousseff's leftist Workers Party (PT).

But his controversial personality and his comments on his Twitter account that love between persons of the same sex leads to "hatred and crime" or his reference to Noah's biblical curse of descendants of his son Ham, meaning the African race, have drawn the ire of human rights advocates.

"I don't want to see a man kiss another in the street," he recently told the weekly Veja.

"When a woman is urged to have the same rights as a man, she begins to lose her maternal side and so as not to become a mother, she does not marry or has sexual relations with a person of the same sex," he said in an interview.

In his inaugural speech, the pastor, who is under investigation for alleged embezzlement within his pentecostal church, denied being anti-gay or racist.

Monday, a group of intellectuals including famous singer Caetano Veloso demanded Feliciano's resignation, protest demonstrations have been held throughout the country ad he is being vilified on social networks.

Yet his election is seen as a sign of the growing influence of evangelicals in Congress, where they have 67 deputies ot of a total 513, and in Brazilian politics in general.