Brazil
FBCCI partners with Brazilian counterpart to boost trade
A Memorandum of understanding (MoU) has been inked between the Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FBCCI) and Brazilian Trade and Investment Promotion Agency (APEXBRASIL) at the headquarters of ApexBrasil in Brazil recently to boost bilateral trade relations.
FBCCI President Md Jashim Uddin and ApexBrasil Business Director Ana Paula Repezza inked the pact on behalf of their respective organisations, according to an FBCCI press release signed by Tanzid Basunia, head of Public Relations and Communications of the business organisation.
Bangladesh and Brazil will work together for the further expansion of bilateral trade relations while the both sides will also support the industries under joint venture and joint collaboration.
As per the deal, the FBCCI and ApexBrasil will exchange information about the economic development of the countries to usher possibilities for increasing trade and for the expansion of economic and industrial cooperation among the enterprises and organisations.
The organisations will cooperate in the sharing of best practices, information, knowledge, methodologies, and expertise on trade promotion and investment attraction.
Read more: Bangladesh seeks Brazilian investment in energy, infrastructure, ICT sectors
Apart from this, they will share ideas and experiences in relation to supporting and facilitating the exchange between Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), startups, incubation centers, research institutes, investors and other relevant stakeholders of both the countries.
The countries will assist and facilitate visits of trade and economic delegations to the other countries and will render maximum cooperation for establishing business contacts.
Germany pledges $222 million for Brazil environment, Amazon
German development minister Svenja Schulze announced Monday that her government will make 204 million euros ($222 million) available for environmental policies in Brazil.
Of this total, $38 million is a donation to the Amazon Fund, Schulze told reporters in capital Brasilia. It is the most important international cooperation effort to preserve the Amazon rainforest, and is mostly funded by Norway. In 2019, former far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, who considered the Amazon an internal affair, dissolved the steering committee that selects sustainable projects to finance. In reaction, Germany and Norway froze their donations.
“With the new government and the team of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and (environment) minister Marina Silva, we have a great chance to protect the forest and to offer a new perspective to the people who live there,” Schulze said.
Under Bolsonaro, deforestation in Brazil's Amazon reached a 15-year high as he dismantled environmental protection policies in favor of agribusiness expansion.
Germany also pledged to provide $87 million in low-interest loans for farmers to restore degraded areas and $34 million for Amazon states to protect the rainforest.
“Despite all the difficulties, the increase in deforestation, the land grabbing, the fires, the dire state of the Indigenous populations, we see this as an opportunity to reverse this whole situation,” Silva said during the press conference.
Read more: In Brazil’s Amazon, rivers rise to record levels
Lula, who took office in January, pledged to end all deforestation by 2030. His four-year term ends in December 2026.
The Amazon, which covers an area twice the size of India, acts as a buffer against climate change because its trees absorb large amounts of carbon dioxide, and roughly two-thirds of the Amazon rainforest lies in Brazil. It is also the most biodiverse forest in the world and holds 20% of the world’s fresh water.
Brazil's Bolsonaro applies for 6-month visitor visa to stay in US
Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has filed a request for a six-month visitor visa to stay in the U.S., indicating he may have no immediate intention of returning home, where legal issues await.
The application was first reported by The Financial Times, citing Bolsonaro's immigration lawyer, Felipe Alexandre. Contacted by The Associated Press, the lawyer's firm, AG Immigration, confirmed the report.
Bolsonaro left Brazil for Florida on Dec. 30, two days before the inauguration of his leftist rival, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. The ceremony proceeded without incident, but a week later thousands of Bolsonaro's die-hard supporters stormed the capital and trashed the top government buildings demanding that Lula's election be overturned.
Bolsonaro is being investigated for whether he had any role in inciting that uprising. It is just one of several probes targeting the former president and that pose a legal headache upon his eventual homecoming, and which could strip him of his eligibility in future races — or worse.
Read more: Brazil authorities seek to punish pro-Bolsonaro rioters
For the first time in his more than three-decade political career as a lawmaker then as president, he no longer enjoys the special legal protection that requires any trial be held at the Supreme Court.
It has been widely assumed — though not confirmed — that Bolsonaro entered the U.S. on an A-1 visa reserved for sitting heads of state. If so, he would have 30 days from the end of his presidential term to either leave the U.S. or adjust his status with the Department of Homeland Security.
Meantime, the shape of his political future and his potential return to Brazil has been a matter of rumor and speculation.
Bolsonaro's calculus appears to be to distance himself from the radicals whose destruction in the capital could implicate him in the short term, with the aim of some day returning to lead the opposition, said Mario Sérgio Lima, a political analyst at Medley Advisors.
“He is giving it some time, staying away a bit from the country at a moment when he can begin to suffer legal consequences for his supporters’ attitudes,” said Lima. “I don’t think the fact of him staying away is enough. The processes will continue, but maybe he thinks he can at least avoid some sort of revenge punishment.”
Bolsonaro has been staying in a home outside Orlando, Florida, and video has shown him snapping photos with supporters in the gated community and ambling around inside a supermarket.
In the wake of the rampage in the Brazilian capital this month, a group of 46 Democratic lawmakers sent a letter to President Joe Biden demanding Bolsonaro’s visa be revoked.
“The United States must not provide shelter for him, or any authoritarian who has inspired such violence against democratic institutions,” they wrote.
Bolsonaro's son, a senator, told reporters at an event this weekend that he was not sure when his father would return to Brazil.
"It could be tomorrow, it could be in six months, he might never return. I don't know. He's relaxing,” Sen. Flávio Bolsonaro said.
Read more: 5 questions on Bolsonaro supporters storming Brazil's Congress
Asked whether Bolsonaro has filed any request for documentation or help with visa processses, Brazil’s foreign ministry referred AP to U.S. authorities. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services referred AP to the State Department, which has repeatedly declined comment to questions about Bolsonaro’s visa status in the U.S.
Brazil’s President Lula fires army chief in aftermath of capital uprising by far-right protesters
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva fired Brazil’s army chief Saturday just days after the leftist leader openly said that some military members allowed the Jan. 8 uprising in the capital by far-right protesters.
The official website of the Brazilian armed forces said Gen. Julio Cesar de Arruda had been removed as head of the army. He was replaced by Gen. Tomás Miguel Ribeiro Paiva, who was head of the Southeast Military Command.
Lula, who did not comment publicly on the firing, met with Defense Minister Jose Mucio, chief of staff Rui Costa and the new army commander in Brasilia at the end of the day. Speaking to journalists afterward, Mucio said the Jan. 8 riots had caused “a fracture in the level of trust” in the army’s top levels and the government decided a change was needed.
Read more: Brazil charges dozens in pro-Bolsonaro riots; more expected
In recent weeks, Lula targeted the military with criticism after supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro stormed through government buildings and destroyed public property in an attempt to keep Bolsonaro in office.
The uprising underlined the polarization in Brazil between the left and the right.
Lula said several times in public that there were definitely people in the army who allowed the rioting to occur, though he never cited Arruda.
During a breakfast with the press, Lula said earlier this week that “a lot of people from the military police and the armed forces were complicit” and had allowed protesters to enter the buildings with open doors. In another interview, the president said that “all the military involved in the coup attempt will be punished, no matter the rank.”
The comments were followed by Lula scheduling several meetings with the defense minister and the armed forces’ commanders. Mucio denied they had mentioned the Jan. 8 rioting, but he said relations between the military and the government needed adjustment.
On the eve of Arruda’s firing, a video of a Paiva speech earlier in the week was released in which he said the election results should be respected in order to guarantee democracy.
Rioters who stormed through the Brazilian Congress, the presidential palace and the Supreme Court in Brasilia sought to have the military intervene and overturn Bolsonaro’s loss to Lula in the presidential election.
Read more: Days before new president, old divisions tearing at Brazil
In a video posted on social media from inside the presidential palace on the day of the attack, a colonel is seen trying to stop police from arresting Bolsonaro’s supporters who had invaded the building. He asks for patience from the military police, which report to the federal district’s government.
More than a thousand people were arrested on the day of the riot and the morning after the disturbance, which bore strong similarities to the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Congress by mobs who wanted to overturn former President Donald Trump’s election loss.
A Brazilian Supreme Court justice earlier this month authorized adding Bolsonaro in its investigation into who incited the rioting in Brasilia as part of a broader crackdown to hold responsible parties to account.
According to the text of his ruling, Justice Alexandre de Moraes granted the request from the prosecutor-general’s office, which cited a video that Bolsonaro posted on Facebook two days after the riot. The video claimed Lula wasn’t voted into office, but rather was chosen by the Supreme Court and Brazil’s electoral authority.
Lula has been trying to reduce the high number of military officers in the government administration left by Bolsonaro. At least 140 military officers have been dismissed since Lula took office Jan. 1.
Dani Alves arrested in Spain for alleged sexual assault
Brazilian soccer player Dani Alves was arrested Friday after being accused of sexually assaulting a woman in Spain.
The alleged act took place on Dec. 31 at a night club in Barcelona, police told The Associated Press.
Alves will now go before a judge, who will decide on the charges.
The charge of sexual assault in Spain can mean anything from unsolicited and unwanted sexual groping to rape. Police said they could give no detail on the case.
Read more: Neymar loses Brazil captaincy to Dani Alves for Copa America
The 39-year-old Alves is one of soccer’s most successful players, winning major titles with several elite clubs, including Barcelona, Juventus and Paris Saint-Germain over his long career. He currently plays with Mexican club Pumas.
The defender was a key part of Barcelona’s golden years playing between 2008-2016 on the team’s right flank with Lionel Messi. He won the Champions League three times with the Catalan club, which he briefly rejoined last season.
Top Brazil court greenlights probe of Bolsonaro for riot
A Brazilian Supreme Court justice on Friday authorized an investigation of whether former president Jair Bolsonaro incited the Jan. 8 riot in the nation’s capital, as part of a broader crackdown to hold responsible parties to account.
According to the text of his ruling, Justice Alexandre de Moraes granted the request from the prosecutor-general's office, which cited a video Bolsonaro posted on Facebook two days after the riot. The video claimed Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva wasn't voted into office, but rather was chosen by the Supreme Court and Brazil's electoral authority.
Prosecutors in the recently formed group to combat anti-democratic acts argued earlier Friday that, although Bolsonaro posted the video after the riot, its content was sufficient to justify investigating his conduct beforehand. Bolsonaro deleted it the morning after he first posted it.
Otherwise, Bolsonaro has refrained from commenting on the election since his Oct. 30 defeat. He repeatedly stoked doubt about the reliability of the electronic voting system in the run-up to the vote, filed a request afterward to annul millions of ballots cast using the machines and never conceded.
He has taken up residence in an Orlando suburb since leaving Brazil in late December and skipping the Jan. 1 swearing-in of his leftist successor, and some Democratic lawmakers have urged President Joe Biden to cancel his visa.
Read more: Roots of the Brazilian capital’s chaotic uprising
Following the justice's decision late Friday, Bolsonaro’s lawyer Frederick Wassef said in a statement that the former president “vehemently repudiates the acts of vandalism and destruction” from Jan. 8, but blamed supposed “infiltrators” of the protest — something his far-right backers have also claimed.
The statement also said Bolsonaro “never had any relationship or participation with these spontaneous social movements.”
Brazilian authorities are investigating who enabled Bolsonaro's radical supporters to storm the Supreme Court, Congress and presidential palace in an attempt to overturn results of the October election. Targets include those who summoned rioters to the capital or paid to transport them, and local security personnel who may have stood aside to let the mayhem occur.
Much of the attention thus far has focused on Anderson Torres, Bolsonaro’s former justice minister, who became the federal district’s security chief on Jan. 2, and was in the U.S. on the day of the riot.
De Moraes ordered Torres’ arrest this week and has opened an investigation into his actions, which he characterized as “neglect and collusion.” In his decision, which was made public Friday, de Moraes said that Torres fired subordinates and left the country before the riot, an indication that he was deliberately laying the groundwork for the unrest.
The court also issued an arrest warrant for the former security chief, and he must return within three days or Brazil will request his extradition, Justice Minister Flávio Dino said Friday.
“If by next week his appearance hasn’t been confirmed, of course we will use mechanisms of international legal cooperation. We will trigger procedures next week to carry out his extradition,” Dino said.
Torres has denied wrongdoing, and said Jan. 10 on Twitter that he would interrupt his vacation to return to Brazil and present his defense. Three days later, that has yet to occur.
The minister pointed to a document that Brazilian federal police found upon searching Torres' home; a draft decree that would have seized control of Brazil's electoral authority and potentially overturned the election. The origin and authenticity of the unsigned document are unclear, and it remains unknown if Bolsonaro or his subordinates took any steps to implement the measure that would have been unconstitutional, according to analysts and the Brazilian academy of electoral and political law.
Read more: Pro-Bolsonaro rioters storm Brazil’s top government offices
But the document “will figure in the police investigation, because it even more fully reveals the existence of a chain of people responsible for the criminal events,” Dino said, adding that Torres will need to inform police who drafted it.
By failing to initiate a probe against the document's author or report its existence, Torres at very could be charged with dereliction of duty, said Mario Sérgio Lima, a political analyst at Medley Advisors.
Torres said on Twitter that the document was probably found in a pile along with others intended for shredding, and that it was leaked out of context feed false narratives aimed at discrediting him.
Dino told reporters Friday morning that no connection has yet been established between the capital riot and Bolsonaro.
The federal district’s former governor and former military police chief are also targets of the Supreme Court investigation made public Friday. Both were removed from their positions after the riot.
Also on Friday night, the popular social media accounts of several prominent right-wing figures were suspended in Brazil in response to a court order, which journalist Glenn Greenwald obtained and detailed on a live social media broadcast.
The order, also issued by Justice de Moraes, was directed at six social media platforms and established a two-hour deadline to block the accounts or face fines. The accounts belong to a digital influencer, a YouTuber recently elected federal lawmaker, a podcast host in the mold of Joe Rogan, and an evangelical pastor and senator-elect, among others.
Rioters in Brazil plotted openly online, pitched huge ‘party’
The map was called “Beach Trip” and was blasted out to more than 18,000 members of a public Telegram channel called, in Portuguese, “Hunting and Fishing.”
But instead of outdoor recreation tips, the 43 pins spread across the map of Brazil pointed to cities where bus transportation to the capital could be found for what promoters promised would a huge “party” on Jan. 8.
“Children and the elderly aren’t invited,” according to the post circulated on the Telegram channel, which has since been removed. “Only adults willing to participate in all the games, including target shooting of police and robbers, musical chairs, indigenous dancing, tag, and others.”
The post was one of several thinly coded messages circulating on social media ahead of Sunday’s violent attack on the capital by supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro looking to restore the far-right leader to power.
It’s also now a potentially vital lead in a fledgling criminal investigation about how the rampage was organized and how officials missed clues to a conspiracy that, like the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol two years ago, appears to have been organized and carried out in plain view.
And like the attack in the U.S., the Brazilian riots demonstrate how social media makes it easier than ever for anti-democratic groups to recruit followers and transform online rhetoric into offline action.
On YouTube, rioters livestreaming the mayhem racked up hundreds of thousands of views before a Brazilian judge ordered social media platforms to remove such content. Misleading claims about the election and the uprising also could be found on Twitter, Facebook and other platforms.
But even before Sunday’s riot, social media and private messaging networks in Brazil were being flooded with calls for one final push to overturn the October election of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva — something authorities appear to have inexplicably missed or ignored.
Most of the online chatter referred to the planned gathering at Brasilia’s Three Powers Plaza as “Selma’s party” — a play on the Portuguese word for “selva,” a battle cry used by Brazil’s military.
Participants were told to bring their own mask to protect against “pepper pie in the face” — or pepper spray fired by security forces. They also were told to dress in the green and yellow of Brazil’s flag — and not the red preferred by Lula’s Workers’ Party.
“Get ready guests, the party will be a blast,” the widely-circulated post said.
“It was all in the open,” said David Nemer, a Brazil native and University of Virginia professor who studies social media. “They listed the people responsible for buses, with their full names and contact information. They weren’t trying to hide anything.”
Still, it’s unclear to what extent social media was responsible for the worst attack on Brazil’s democracy in decades. Only a handful of far-right activists showed up at gas terminals and refineries that were also pinpointed on the “Beach Trip” map as locations for demonstrations planned for Sunday.
Bruno Fonseca, a journalist for Agencia Publica, a digital investigative journalism outlet, has tracked the online activities of pro-Bolsonaro groups for years. He said the activists live in a state of constant confrontation but sometimes, their frequent calls to mobilize fall flat.
“It’s difficult to know when something will jump out from social media and not,” said Fonseca, who in a report this week traced the spread of the “Selma’s Party” post to users who appear to be bots.
Still, he said, authorities could have paired the online activity with other intelligence-gathering tools to investigate, for example, a surge in bus traffic to the capital before the attacks. He said their inaction may reflect negligence or the deep support for Bolsonaro among security forces.
One gnawing question is why, on the day of the chaos, Anderson Torres, a Bolsonaro ally who had just been named the top security official in Brasilia, was reportedly in Florida — where his former boss was on a retreat. Torres was swiftly fired and Brazil’s Supreme Court has ordered his arrest pending an investigation. Torres denied any wrongdoing and said he would return to Brazil and present his defense.
Sunday’s violence came after Brazilian voters were bombarded by a flood of false and misleading claims before last fall’s vote. Much of the content focused on unfounded concerns about electronic voting, and some featured threats of violent retaliation if Bolsonaro was defeated.
One of the most popular rallying cries used by Bolsonaro’s supporters was #BrazilianSpring, a term coined by former Trump aide Steve Bannon in the hours after Bolsonaro’s defeat to Lula.
“We all know that this Brazilian election was going to be contentious,” said Flora Rebello Arduini, a London-based campaign director with SumOfUs, a nonprofit that tracked extremist content before and after Brazil’s election. “Social media platforms played a vital role in amplifying far-right extremist voices and even calls for violent uprising. If we can identify this kind of content, then so can they (the companies). Incompetence is not an excuse.”
Brazil’s capital city steeled itself Wednesday for the possibility of new attacks fueled by social media posts, including one circulating on Telegram calling for a “mega protest to retake power.” But those protests fizzled.
In response to the criticism, spokespeople for Telegram, YouTube and Facebook said their companies were working to remove content urging more violence.
“Telegram is a platform for free speech and peaceful protest,” Telegram spokesman Remi Vaughn wrote in a statement to the AP. “Calls to violence are explicitly forbidden and dozens of public communities where such calls were being made have been blocked in Brazil in the past week — both proactively as per our Terms of Service as well as in response to court orders.”
A YouTube spokeswoman said the platform has removed more than 2,500 channels and more than 10,000 videos related to the election in Brazil.
Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, has prioritized efforts to combat harmful content about Brazil’s election, a company spokesman told The Associated Press.
'No amnesty!': Brazilian protests demand jail for rioters
“No amnesty! No amnesty! No amnesty!”
The chant reverberated off the walls of the jam-packed hall at the University of Sao Paulo’s law college on Monday afternoon. Within hours, it was the rallying cry for thousands of Brazilians who streamed into the streets of Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, penned on protest posters and banners.
The words are a demand for retribution against the supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro who stormed Brazil’s capital Sunday, and those who enabled the rampage.
“These people need to be punished, the people who ordered it need to be punished, those who gave money for it need to be punished,” Bety Amin, a 61-year-old therapist, said on Sao Paulo’s main boulevard. The word “DEMOCRACY” stretched across the back of her shirt. “They don’t represent Brazil. We represent Brazil.”
Protesters' push for accountability evokes memories of an amnesty law that for decades has protected military members accused of abuse and murder during the country's 1964-85 dictatorship. A 2014 truth commission report sparked debate over how Brazil has grappled with the regime's legacy.
Declining to mete out punishment “can avoid tensions at the moment, but perpetuates instability,” Luis Felipe Miguel, a professor of political science at the University of Brasilia, wrote in a column entitled “No Amnesty” published Monday evening. “That is the lesson we should have learned from the end of the military dictatorship, when Brazil opted not to punish the regime’s killers and torturers.”
Brazilian police on Monday had already rounded up roughly 1,500 rioters. Some were caught in the act of trashing Brazil's Congress, the Supreme Court and the presidential palace. Most were detained the following morning at an encampment in Brasilia. Many were held in a gymnasium throughout the day, and video shared on pro-Bolsonaro social media channels showed some complaining about poor treatment in the crowded space.
Hundreds of elderly and sick detainees were released Tuesday after they were questioned and had their phones inspected, local media O Globo reported. The Federal Police’s press office told The Associated Press that the force plans to indict at least 1,000 people. As of early afternoon, 447 people had been transfered to either a detention center or prison, according to a bulletin from the federal district’s penitenciary administration.
The administration of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva says jailing the rioters is only the start.
Justice minister Flávio Dino vowed to prosecute those who acted behind the scenes to summon supporters on social media and finance their transport on charges involving organized crime, staging a coup, and violent abolition of the democratic rule of law. Authorities also are investigating allegations that local security personnel allowed the destruction to proceed unabated.
“We cannot and will not compromise in fulfilling our legal duties," Dino said. "This fulfillment is essential so such events do not repeat themselves.”
Lula signed a decree, now approved by both houses of Congress, ordering the federal government to assume control of security in the capital.
Read more: Brazil election: Lula defeats Bolsonaro to become president again
Far-right elements have refused to accept Bolsonaro’s electoral defeat. Since his Oct. 30 loss, they have camped outside military barracks in Brasilia, pleading for intervention to allow Bolsonaro to remain in power and oust Lula. When no coup materialized, they rose up themselves.
Decked out in the green and yellow of the national flag, they broke windows, toppled furniture and hurled computers and printers to the ground. They punched holes in a massive Emiliano Di Cavalcanti painting at the presidential palace and destroyed other works of art. They overturned the U-shaped table where Supreme Court justices convene, ripped a door off one justice’s office and vandalized a statue outside the court. Hours passed before police expelled the mob.
"It's unacceptable what happened yesterday. It's terrorism," Marcelo Menezes, a 59-year-old police officer from northeastern Pernambuco state, said at a protest in Sao Paulo. “I’m here in defense of democracy, I’m here in defense of the people.”
Cries of “No amnesty!" were also heard during Lula's Jan. 1 inaugural address, in response to the president detailing the neglect of the outgoing Bolsonaro administration.
Bolsonaro, a former army captain, has waxed nostalgic for the dictatorship era, praised a notorious torturer as a hero and said the regime should have gone further in executing communists. His government also commemorated the anniversary of Brazil’s 1964 coup.
Political analysts had repeatedly warned that Bolsonaro was laying the groundwork for an insurrection in the mold of that which unfolded in the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. For months, he stoked belief among hardcore supporters that the nation’s electronic voting system was prone to fraud — though he never presented any evidence and independent experts disagreed.
Results from the election, the closest since Brazil's return to democracy, were quickly recognized by politicians across the spectrum, including some Bolsonaro allies, as well as dozens of other governments. The outgoing president surprised nearly everyone by promptly fading from view, neither conceding defeat nor emphatically crying fraud. He and his party submitted a request to nullify millions of votes, which was swiftly dismissed by the electoral authority.
None of that dissuaded his die-hard backers from their conviction that Bolsonaro should still be in power.
In the immediate aftermath of the riot, Lula said that the so-called “fascist fanatics” and their financial backers must be held responsible. He also accused Bolsonaro of encouraging the uprising.
Bolsonaro denied the president’s accusation Sunday. Writing on Twitter, he said peaceful protest is part of democracy, but vandalism and invasion of public buildings cross the line.
Read more: Brazil election body rejects Bolsonaro's push to void votes
Authorities are also investigating the role of the federal district's police in either failing to halt protesters' advance or standing aside to let them run amok. Prosecutors in the capital said local security forces were negligent at the very least. A supreme court justice temporarily suspended the regional governor, who oversees the force, for what he termed "willful omission". Another justice blamed authorities across Brazil for not swiftly cracking down on “homegrown neofascism.”
The upheaval finally prompted municipal and state governments to disperse the pro-Bolsonaro encampments outside the military barracks. Their tents and tarps were taken down, and residents were sent packing.
Meanwhile, pro-democracy protesters want to ensure their message — “No amnesty!” — will be heeded by both the law enforcement authorities and any far-right elements who might dare defy democracy again.
“After what happened yesterday, we need to go to the street,” said Marcos Gama, a retiree protesting Monday night in Sao Paulo. “We need to react.”
Roots of the Brazilian capital’s chaotic uprising
Thousands of Brazilians who support former president Jair Bolsonaro invaded the Supreme Court, presidential palace and Congress on Jan. 8 in an episode that closely resembled the U.S. Capitol insurrection in 2021. The groups were able to break through police barricades along the capital Brasilia’s main boulevard and storm the buildings, damage furniture, smash windows and destroy artworks. As they unleashed chaos in the capital, Bolsonaro was holed up in Florida, home to his ally, former U.S. President Donald Trump. The incident sparked accusations that Bolsonaro’s actions stoked the flames of dissent and ultimately produced the uprising.
WHO ARE THESE PROTESTERS, AND WHAT DO THEY WANT?
The protesters are hardcore Bolsonaro supporters, some of whom have been camped outside a military headquarters in Brasilia since Bolsonaro lost the Oct. 30 presidential election and reject the race’s results. Others traveled to Brasilia for the weekend on buses. They have been demanding military intervention to oust newly inaugurated President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, alleging he is a thief who will lead the country into communism, and restore Bolsonaro to power.
HOW DID BRAZIL GET TO THIS POINT?
Throughout his administration, Bolsonaro trained fire at Supreme Court justices for opening investigations targeting him and his allies. He repeatedly singled out Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who presided over the electoral authority during the election, and at one point pushed Brazil to the brink of an institutional crisis by threatening to disobey any of de Moraes’ future rulings.
Read: Brazil cracks down post-riot and vows to protect democracy
Bolsonaro also sowed doubt about the reliability of Brazil’s electronic voting machines, then declined to concede defeat. After his loss, he largely vanished from view, though he addressed his supporters once to tell them they had the power in their hands and that he controls the armed forces. His supporters maintained hope Bolsonaro or the armed forces would lead an intervention to overturn the results.
WHAT HAS BOLSONARO CLAIMED ABOUT THE VOTING SYSTEM AND ELECTIONS?
Bolsonaro insisted the electronic voting system should feature a printed receipt in order to enable audits, but Congress’ Lower House in 2021 voted down his proposal for that change and electoral authorities say the results can already be verified. Security experts consider electronic voting less secure than hand-marked paper ballots because they leave no auditable paper trail. Brazil’s system is, however, closely scrutinized and domestic authorities and international observers have never found evidence of it being exploited to commit fraud since its adoption in 1996.
After the 2022 elections, Bolsonaro and his party petitioned the electoral authority to nullify millions of votes cast on the majority of voting machines that featured a software bug — the machines lacked individual identification numbers in their internal logs. The request didn’t say how the bug might affect results, and independent experts said that it would not undermine reliability in any way. The electoral authority’s president swiftly dismissed the request and imposed a multi-million dollar fine on the party for what he called a bad-faith effort.
WHAT ARE BOLSONARO’S TIES TO TRUMP AND HIS ALLIES?
Former U.S. President Donald Trump was one of Bolsonaro’s few foreign allies and Bolsonaro often exalted his American counterpart’s leadership, even posting photos of himself watching Trump’s addresses.
Bolsonaro and his lawmaker son Eduardo visited Trump at Mar-a-Lago, and both attended dinners at the house of Steve Bannon. The longtime Trump ally amplified Bolsonaro’s claims about the electronic voting system before the October vote and, after the Jan. 8 uprising in Brasilia, called the protesters “Brazilian freedom fighters” in a video on social media.
Read: Brazil authorities seek to punish pro-Bolsonaro rioters
Eduardo Bolsonaro has repeatedly attended the Conservative Political Action Conference in the U.S., positioning himself as the international face of the right-wing movement led by his father and making inroads with his American counterparts. Jason Miller, the former Trump campaign strategist, also met with Eduardo in Brazil. On the eve of the Jan. 6 insurrection in the U.S. Capitol, Eduardo was in Washington, and met with Ivanka Trump and My Pillow chief executive Mike Lindell.
After Trump lost his reelection bid, then-President Bolsonaro waited five weeks before recognizing Joe Biden’s victory and was one of the final world leaders to do so.
WHY IS BOLSONARO IN THE U.S.?
Bolsonaro flew to Florida two days before Lula’s Jan. 1 inauguration, when the outgoing president traditionally bestows the presidential sash to his successor. Instead, Bolsonaro took up temporary residence in the home of a Brazilian former mixed martial arts fighter outside Orlando. He hasn’t specified the reasons for his departure, and analysts have speculated it marks an attempt to avoid potential prosecution in connection with several ongoing investigations targeting him, blame from backers for not mobilizing the armed forces or responsibility for his supporters’ actions.
Brazil cracks down post-riot and vows to protect democracy
Brazilian authorities vowed Monday to protect democracy and punish thousands of supporters of ex-President Jair Bolsonaro who stormed and trashed the nation’s highest seats of power in chaos with striking similarities to the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
The protesters swarmed into Congress, the Supreme Court and presidential palace on Sunday. Many have said they want the Brazilian army to restore the far-right Bolsonaro to power and oust the newly inaugurated leftist Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
Read more: Brazil election body rejects Bolsonaro's push to void votes
Police broke down a pro-Bolsonaro encampment outside a military building Monday and detained some 1,200 people there, the justice ministry’s press office told The Associated Press.
Lula and the heads of the Supreme Court, Senate and Lower House also signed a letter Monday denouncing acts of terrorism and vandalism and saying they were taking legal measures.
Justice Minister Flávio Dino told reporters police have begun tracking those who paid for the buses that transported protesters to the capital. At the news conference late Sunday, Brazil’s minister of institutional relations said the buildings would be inspected for evidence including fingerprints and images to hold people to account, and that the rioters apparently intended to spark similar uprest nationwide.
“They will not succeed in destroying Brazilian democracy. We need to say that fully, with all firmness and conviction,” Dino said. “We will not accept the path of criminality to carry out political fights in Brazil. A criminal is treated like a criminal.”
Rioters donning the green and yellow of the national flag on Sunday broke windows, toppled furniture, hurled computers and printers to the ground. They punctured a massive Emiliano Di Cavalcanti painting at the presidential palace in seven places and completely destroyed other works of art. They overturned the U-shaped table at which Supreme Court justices convene, ripped a door off one justice's office and vandalized an iconic statue outside the court. The monumental buildings' interiors were left in states of ruin.
Monday's arrests came in addition to the 300 held Sunday while caught in the act.
But police were noticeably slow to react - even after the arrival of more than 100 buses - leading many to ponder whether authorities had either simply ignored numerous warnings, underestimated the protesters' strength, or been somehow complicit.
Public prosecutors in the capital said local security forces had at very least been negligent. A supreme court justice temporarily suspended the regional governor. Another justice blamed authorities for not swiftly cracking down on budding neofascism in Brazil.
After his Oct. 30 electoral defeat, Bolsonaro, who has gone to Florida, has been stoking belief among his hardcore supporters that the electronic voting system was prone to fraud — though he never presented any evidence. His lawmaker son Eduardo Bolsonaro held several meetings with former U.S. President Donald Trump, Trump's longtime ally Steve Bannon and his senior campaign adviser, Jason Miller.
Results from Brazil's election — the closest in over three decades — were quickly recognized by politicians across the spectrum, including some Bolsonaro allies, as well as dozens of governments. And Bolsonaro surprised nearly everyone by promptly fading from view. He neither conceded defeat nor emphatically cried fraud, though he and his party submitted a request to nullify millions of votes that was swiftly dismissed.
Brazilians have used electronic voting since 1996 that security experts consider less secure than hand-marked paper ballots because they leave no auditable paper trail. Brazil’s system is, however, closely scrutinized and domestic authorities and international observers have never found evidence of it being exploited to commit fraud.
Still, Bolsonaro's supporters refused to accept the results. They blocked roads and have remained camped outside military buildings, urging the armed forces to intervene. Dino, the justice minister, referred to the encampments as incubators of terrorism. Protests were overwhelmingly peaceful, but isolated threats — including a bomb found on a fuel truck headed to Brasilia’s airport — prompted security concerns.
Two days before Lula's Jan. 1 inauguration, Bolsonaro flew to the U.S. and took up temporary residence in Orlando. Many Brazilians expressed relief that, while he declined to participate in the transition of power, his absence allowed it to occur without incident.
Or so it had been, until Sunday's havoc.
“Bolsonarism mimics the same strategies as Trumpism. Our Jan. 8 — an unprecedented manifestation in Brazilian politics — is clearly copied from Jan. 6 in the Capitol,” said Paulo Calmon, a political science professor at the University of Brasilia. “Today’s sad episodes represent yet another attempt to destabilize democracy and demonstrate that the authoritarian, populist radicalism of Brazil's extreme right remains active under the command of former President Bolsonaro, the ‘Trump of Latin America.'”
U.S. President Joe Biden, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau jointly said Monday that “Canada, Mexico, and the United States condemn the January 8 attacks on Brazil’s democracy and on the peaceful transfer of power. We stand with Brazil as it safeguards its democratic institutions.”
Analysts told the AP that the upheaval could yield greater political support for Lula and his stated mission to pacify the polarized country, with many right-wing citizens and politicians repulsed by Sunday's scenes and eager to distance themselves from far-right radicalism. The leader of Bolsonaro's own party called the uprising “an embarrassment.”
Read more: Brazil election: Lula defeats Bolsonaro to become president again
“This may have been the beginning of the end. The political system will want to isolate that radical movement and move away from it,” said Mario Sérgio Lima, political analyst at Medley Advisors. “I think what we will see now is the right trying to create new alternatives and new leaders, and the center distancing itself.”
In a news conference from Sao Paulo state, Lula read a freshly signed decree for the federal government to assume control of security in the federal district. He said that the so-called “fascist fanatics,” as well as those who financed their activities, must be punished, and also accused Bolsonaro of encouraging their uprising.
Bolsonaro repudiated the president's accusation late Sunday. Writing on Twitter, he said peaceful protest is part of democracy, but vandalism and invasion of public buildings are “exceptions to the rule.”
Unlike the 2021 attack in the U.S., few officials would have been working in the top government buildings on a Sunday. And videos showed limited presence of the capital’s military police.
One video showed a group of protesters easily pushing through a police barricade, with only a few officers using pepper spray. Another showed officers standing by as protesters stormed the Congress, including one using his phone to record what was happening.
“This was a gross error by the federal district's government. It was a tragedy foretold,” said Thiago de Aragão, director of strategy at Brasilia-based politican consultancy Arko Advice. “Everyone knew they (the protesters) were coming to Brasilia. The expectation was that the federal district's government was going to mount a response to protect the capital. They didn't do any of that."
Lula said at his news conference there was “incompetence or bad faith" on the part of police, and he promised some would be punished.
Federal District Gov. Ibaneis Rocha confirmed on Twitter he had fired the capital city’s head of public security, Anderson Torres — hours before a Supreme Court justice suspended the governor from office, alleging “intentional omission.”
“Two years since Jan. 6, Trump’s legacy continues to poison our hemisphere,” U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez, who chairs the Senate’s foreign relations committee, tweeted, adding that he blamed Bolsonaro for inciting the acts. “Protecting democracy & holding malign actors to account is essential.”