What was supposed to be a debate about the Middle East on the program Manhattan Connection, on the Brazilian channel Globonews, ended up creating a diplomatic crisis between Brazil and Jordan when the journalist Caio Blinder called Queen Rania de Jordania a “piranha” while commenting about first ladies of the region, reported The Telegraph.
“Politically, she [the queen] and the other piranhas are unbearable. All of them offer a facade of modernization of their regimes. That is, they don't want to appear as if they are parasitic royalty or submissive Muslim women. This is what they sell to the West," said Blinder on the program, which aired March 3.
Then on April 13, according to O Dia, the Jordan ambassador in Brazil, Ramez Goussous, lodged a formal complaint with the Brazilian foreign ministry. The diplomat also demanded a retraction and threatened to sue the television station. Representatives from 17 other countries also have denounced Blinder's comments.
The journalist apologized and said that he regretted the situation. “I spoke stupidities and now I rightly am paying for it. It is not my nature to use these terms to refer to women of other religions,” Blinder said, as quoted by Folha de São Paulo.
Note from the editor: This story was originally published by the Knight Center’s blog Journalism in the Americas, the predecessor of LatAm Journalism Review.
