The new Minister of Justice, who until today has not said the word “justice” even once, but since he was announced for the position makes almost daily threats to those who protest against Lula da Silva’s election, presented to Brazil a theory on public security that had never been heard until now.
According to him, terrorism is in the air throughout the country, and comes from the camps formed near the barracks to denounce what the demonstrators consider electoral fraud — or to ask, in SOS, that the Army put a brake on the judiciary board that attacks the Constitution and the rest of the laws in force in Brazil every day.
The new minister says, without presenting the most miserable shred of proof, that the demonstrations are an “incubator of terrorist acts”. Therefore, they need to be repressed — and it is clear how much the idea of police repression fascinates this new government. Did any difficulties appear? Call the police. They’re loving it.
The arrest of an individual who, according to the accusations, intended to set off an explosion near Brasília Airport, was the last excuse that the Minister used in his serial effort to break up popular demonstrations in opposition to Lula da Silva.
He has been trying this from the first minute; he does not admit, along with his boss and the PT, that there are people on the street exercising their constitutional right to say in public what they think.
He has already said that calling Lula da Silva a “thief” is a crime – despite his convictions for passive corruption and money laundering in the Brazilian courts. He also tries to criminalize banners that say “SOS Forças Armadas” [SOS Armed Forces].
He wants the Army to remove people from around its barracks; otherwise, it threatens to dissolve the demonstrations by force. To combat “terrorism”, he announces an offensive against shooting clubs, hunters and Brazilians who have legal weapons.
What does the unexploded bomb at Brasília Airport have to do with target shooting clubs, or with the hunting of teals? Registered weapons are responsible for exactly 0% of crime in Brazil. (There were 45,000 homicides in the country in 2022, but the new minister has not said a single syllable so far on the subject; his problem is the citizens who are allowed by law to have guns.) What sense can this obsession with “disarming” the population have? Criminals keep getting more and more armed. Anyone willing to detonate a bomb will not ask for authorization from the Federal Police. It is a farce at its most blatant.
Even worse is the criminalization of peaceful, orderly and perfectly legal popular demonstrations; in 50 days of protest, not a single window was broken, not a single trash can was set on fire, no one was assaulted, no misdemeanor was committed, let alone any crime. All that was done was talk, sing the National Anthem and show Brazilian flags.
Why, then, would the demonstrators have to leave the street? The Federal Constitution fully guarantees their right to be there. And they do have the right to say they are in favor of a military regime, or whatever they want. What law prohibits someone from asking for military personnel in the government? The subject can also be in favor of the end of the world, or against piped water, or say that he believes in flying saucers. The Constitution never makes a list of matters that may or may not be taken to the public square; everybody can.
It is false to say that the demonstrations in front of the barracks are “anti-democratic acts”; it is a pure and simple exercise of civil rights. It is anti-democratic to remove, by force, those who express their opinions in an orderly manner and within the law.
With information from Revista Oeste