Do not judge

A fortnight ago - that is, on May 3rd - the housewife Fabiane Maria de Jesus, 31, was lynched in the city of Guarujá in São Paulo coast, after being mistaken for an alleged kidnapper of children. Fabiane was coming from a friend's house where she had gone to fetch the Bible that she had borrowed. The copy of the Bible, which contained a photo of his daughters, was torn by her attackers. After the assault, committed by dozens of people, the woman was left unconscious until the police arrived. Fabiane died on the morning of day 5th, after two days she had been admitted to the ER of a city hospital.

The verb lynches means justice or summarily executes a person without any kind of legal judgment.

The origin of the word brings us to Captain William Lynch, a U.S. citizen who lived in the period from 1742 to 1820, in Pittsylvania County, Virginia.

Before the outbreak of the American Civil War, lynching was used mainly in the United States against civil rights advocates, horse thieves and crooks. However, by 1880, its use has expanded to groups of supposedly lower social status, with black people, Jews, Indians and Asian immigrants as targets.

The practice of lynching, although did not begin in North America because, according to some historians, the fact had been registered in Europe during the Middle Ages.

There are also numerous reports of lynching in antiquity promoted in contravention of the law. Among Jews stoning – stoning by the crowd - it was applied in several cases, such as the female adultery and male homosexuality, among others. The New Testament tells of two cases of stoning which became famous - from the adulterous woman, Jesus avoid it to happen, and Stephen.

Normally, the lynching occurs before the police arrive at the place where the victim, albeit there are reports of cases where the target of collective anger was detained at a police station without the police force were able to control the hatred of the aggressors. They are also common in prisons, especially against prisoners accused of rape.

Lynching is a phenomenon of difficult concept, given the diversity of aspects involved in it, but no doubt we can say that demonstrates utter disbelief in human justice, plus the lack of faith and even contempt for the laws of God, whose synthesis can be found at the lessons that Jesus brought to Earth.

In the case of Guarujá (SP), as we know, it was attacked and killed an innocent person and thus destroyed a family. However, while Fabiane Maria de Jesus was the person sought by police, nobody would fit the right to justice, because arrest, indict, prosecute and judge are tasks that, in a democratic state, competing authorities with legally invested power.

"Do not judge, that ye be not judged."

The famous warning by Jesus and recorded in chapter 7 of Matthew's Gospel, still echoes in our world, but unfortunately there are people who have not, as you see, ears able to hear it.