Banner seen in a protest in Brasilia in August 2015 saying “Stop Marxist indoctrination, no more Paulo Freire”. Photo: Author unknown/shared widely on social media. A surprise visit by city councilor Fernando Holiday to schools in São Paulo reignited the controversy around the campaign “Escola Sem Partido”, or School Without Party, which claims to combat “ideological indoctrination” in schools, but is seen by its critics as an instrument for censoring teachers and students. On 3 April, Holiday popped into two municipal schools in São Paulo unannounced with the objective of investigating incidences of “indoctrination” by teachers. The visit was broadcast live on his Facebook page, where he said: Vamos fiscalizar (…) o conteúdo que está sendo dado em sala de aula, isto é, se está havendo algum tipo de doutrinação ideológica, se os professores estão dando aquilo que realmente deveriam dar, de acordo com a grade curricular, ou se tem professor entrando lá com camiseta do PT (Partido dos Trabalhadores), do MST (Movimento Sem Terra), jogando tudo pro alto e fazendo aquela doutrinação porca que a gente já conhece. We are going to check […] the content that is being taught in classrooms, that is, if there is any type of ideological indoctrination, if the teachers are teaching what they really should be teaching, in accordance with the curriculum, or if there are teachers entering there with a T-shirt of the PT [Workers’ Party], or of the MST [Landless Workers Movement], throwing everything up in the air and doing that damn indoctrination that we already know. Fernando Holiday, 20, was elected to São Paulo's city council by the right-wing party Democratas (DEM) in 2016, helped there by Movimento Brasil Livre (Free Brasil Movement), or MBL, for which he acts as national coordinator. The MBL was at the front of the protests which brought about the impeachment of ex-President Dilma Rousseff, and today galvanizes the popular base of Michel Temer’s government and São Paulo mayor João Dória Jr. MBL is a vocal supporter of the Escola Sem Partido campaign, which has the stated objective of combating “ideological indoctrination” in secondary schools. Supported above all by conservative sections of Brazilian society, the campaign starts from the presumption that there is a predominance of teaching content which would be identified as having a “left-wing” worldview, spanning from defending minority rights to sex education and criticism of economic liberalism. Holiday's live video sparked a wave of demonstrations against Escola Sem Partido and the city councilor's inspections. Secretary of Municipal Education Alexandre Schneider reacted in a Facebook post, stating that “the councilor exceeded his mandate and cannot use his position to intimidate teachers”. São Paulo city councillor Fernando Holiday in one of the schools he visited on 03 April. Screenshot/Facebook On 13 April, UN rapporteurs sent a communique to President Michel Temer’s government, criticizing legislative projects stemming from Escola Sem Partido. The report, signed by the special reporters on education, freedom of expression, and freedom of religion, stated that the movement’s proposals are vague and could “cause censorship and self-censorship of teachers”. After the communique’s publication, the movement’s founder, Miguel Nagib, published a Facebook post calling it “dishonest”. Federal Deputy Marco Feliciano, who is a minister of the Universal Church and is known for his homophobic views and support of the Escola Sem Partido, uploaded a video on his YouTube channel claiming that the UN’s opposition showed that the campaign was “on the right path”. The movement was created in 2004 to denounce and repress what its supporters considered to be practices of ideological indoctrination in schools. Its manifesto proclaims that the country’s classrooms are used as places for the dissemination of political ideologies and content which could be in conflict with the moral and religious convictions of students’ parents. Nagib often says that the practice is a “notorious fact”, without, however, presenting empirical evidence that supports such a claim. Since 2014, the movement has been bringing legislative projects to the Chamber of Deputies, the Federal Senate, and various legislative state assemblies in Brazil. One such initiative of theirs was passed into law in the state of Alagoas in 2016, but in the end it was revoked by the Supreme Federal Tribunal in March – the court decided that the state legislature did not have the power to legislate on general norms for education. Their proposals aim to include conditions on political and ideological neutrality in Brazil's Education Law, as well as create mechanisms for controlling the professional activities of teachers.