Hundreds of supporters of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro invaded the headquarters of the National Congress this Sunday in a demonstration calling for a military intervention to overthrow President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
The group, which defends coup theses, overcame a police barrier and climbed the ramp that gives access to the Planalto Palace, seat of the Executive, and the Supreme Court and the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate.
The windows of the headquarters of the Judiciary and the National Congress were broken by the protesters, who already occupy the buildings of the three powers in the country.
The extremists, mostly wearing yellow and green shirts and Brazilian flags, also attacked some vehicles of the Legislative Police, which provides security for Congress. They destroyed protection barriers and, armed with sticks, confronted the agents who tried, without success, to stop the protesters from entering.
Lula, who assumed the Presidency of Brazil on the 1st, is traveling this weekend in the city of Araraquara, in Sao Paulo.
Hundreds of radical Bolsonaro supporters have been camped out in front of the Army Headquarters in Brasilia since the day after the elections on October 30, in which Lula defeated Bolsonaro.
Since Lula’s victory in the second electoral round on October 30, with 50.9% of the valid votes compared to 49.1% for Bolsonaro, his supporters have concentrated outside the Army barracks.
On Saturday, the Minister of Justice, Flávio Dino, authorized the action of the National Security Force, an elite group of police forces from all over the country, which is mobilized for special missions.
In the context of the protests, Dino affirmed this Sunday that “the will of the radical Bolsonaristas who have invaded the headquarters of the Executive, the Legislative and the Supreme Court, in a coup demonstration, will not prevail.”
Dino said in a Twitter message that “there will be reinforcements” of the police and that the forces that are available “are acting.”
In a statement, Dino said that the Ministry of Justice called an emergency meeting with security agencies to deal with the demonstrations.
For his part, the president of the Brazilian Congress, Senator Rodrigo Pacheco, asked today to punish “urgently” and with the “rigor of the law” the Bolsonaro radicals who have invaded the headquarters of Parliament, the Presidency of the Republic and the Supreme Court, in Brasilia.
“I vehemently repudiate these anti-democratic acts, which must urgently feel the rigor of the law,” Pachecho said, in a message posted on his social networks.
The senator reported that he is in “permanent contact” with the governor of the Federal District of Brasilia, Ibaneis Rocha, who assured him that “he is concentrating the efforts of the entire police apparatus” to “control the situation.”
The Argentine Foreign Minister, Santiago Cafiero, also positioned himself against the protests. “In the face of the right-wing coup actions in Brazil, we express our solidarity with @LulaOficial and raise our voices in defense of Brazilian democracy,” he defended in a message posted on his official Twitter account.
The president of Chile, Gabriel Boric, expressed his “support” for the government of the Brazilian president. “Unpresentable attack on the three powers of the Brazilian State by Bolsonarists. The Brazilian government has our full support in the face of this cowardly and vile attack on democracy,” the Chilean president published through social networks.
For its part, the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (Celac), currently chaired by Argentina, expressed this Sunday its “support” for the Government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, after followers of former President Jair Bolsonaro invaded the buildings of the three state powers.
