RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – A pro-democracy protest called by organized soccer club fans turned Paulista Avenue into a war zone on Sunday afternoon. The State Police (PM) used tear gas to disperse the group, which improvised a few barricades in the streets and hurled sticks and stones in reaction.
The commotion began when a group of President Jair Bolsonaro’s supporters carrying the flags of European neo-Nazi groups approached the anti-fascist demonstrators. Two separate rallies were taking place on the scene, one of them by a radical group of government backers. To separate the groups, the PM initially cordoned off the two sides, each on a different lane.
The organized soccer club fans took to the streets as a way to oppose Bolsonarist rallies which have been taking place since the start of quarantine in several cities across Brazil. In Brasília such rallies occur with the President in attendance, as was the case again on Sunday – in many of them, protesters are calling for the closure of the Supreme Court and Congress, in addition to a military coup.
The pro-democracy demonstration, which was attended by hundreds of people, was mobilized on social media and Whatsapp by groups of Corinthians, Santos and Palmeiras soccer fans linked to the anti-fascist movement. Despite the pandemic, these groups considered it essential to oppose pro-military intervention rallies. To cries of “Democracy! Democracy!”, the march headed towards the São Paulo Museum of Art (MASP).
TV footage shows the President’s supporters prompting the commotion, which started around 1:45 PM. Paulo Henrique, one of the demonstrators, said that three people in uniforms linked to the pro-Bolsonaro group teased the demonstrators, “and then
came the whole Riot Squad,” a version corroborated by the executive secretary of the São Paulo State Police, Colonel Álvaro Batista Camilo, in an interview with CNN.
“Out of nowhere, the PM troops started attacking us,” commented a boy in black who covered his bloodshot eyes, afflicted by the smoke from the tear gas bombs. However, Paulo Henrique explained that the three uniformed demonstrators were walking on the same lane as the anti-fascist rally, something that the police had been avoiding from the outset. Some participants attacked the uniformed demonstrators which would have triggered the unrest and placed the anti-fascists on the PM’s target.
From then on, an effort aimed at dispersing the anti-fascist rally began, while the pro-Bolsonaro radicals stood aside. The police made a human wall on the lane divider protected by shields near the MASP.
From there, they moved forward through Paulista Avenue, firing tear gas in an attempt to ward off protesters running towards Consolação Street opposite the police barrier. However, the demonstrators, mostly men, resisted the police attack, complaining that they were being persecuted, which did not occur with the pro-Nazi group.
Footage by demonstrators shows a man in a military uniform holding a Ukrainian Pravyy Sektor party flag, linked to the far-right and to neo-Nazi groups, taunting those taking part in the pro-democracy rally. Last week a flag of this same radical group was seen in a sound car during another pro-Bolsonaro rally. Videos of a Bolsonarist sympathizer holding a baseball bat and being escorted out of Paulista Avenue by police also circulate on the Internet.
Near the Conjunto Nacional shopping mall on Paulista Avenue, demonstrators tried to shelter themselves behind safety railings next to the mall. They hurled stones at the police, and fought the “Democracy” cries. A dumpster was flipped and placed to mark distance from the police. Photographers moved behind the dumpster to take pictures of the police block just before 4 PM.
A group of activists lined up with their backs to the police and facing the photographers, with their arms up, shouting “De-mo-cra-cy”.
In times when Nazi symbols and authoritarian outbursts are multiplying in Brazil, including a brief demonstration of supremacist rhetoric outside the Supreme Court on Saturday, the resistance cry of demonstrators who placed themselves at risk there made sense. It was a moment of quiet, respected by the PM, but short-lived. A protester – who was not in the activists’ barrier – hurled stones at the police, and the tear gas attacks were restarted. The PM moved forward until the end of Paulista Avenue, at the corner of Consolação Street.
Governor João Doria said on Twitter that the troops’ efforts were aimed at “protecting the physical integrity of demonstrators on Paulista Avenue. From both sides”. In an interview with TV Globo, PM’s Colonel Camilo said the “use of non-lethal ammunition was intended to prevent antagonistic groups from clashing”.
Asked about the police’s purported partiality, given that many Bolsonarist demonstrators are linked to the police, Camilo said the PM “is neither for nor against”, and that it is there “to protect the citizen from injury”. He did not confirm the arrest of demonstrators, nor did he mention any injuries. By 4 PM there were still conflict spots on the avenue.
The turmoil in this pro-democracy rally could serve as ammunition for pro-dictatorship groups that are calling for military intervention to “guarantee order” and prevent Brazil from becoming a “communist dictatorship under the yoke of China,” according to slogans seen in recent pro-Bolsonaro rallies. The President, who used a helicopter on Sunday to fly over a protest supporting his government in Brasília and then went on horseback to greet those present, has not yet commented on the events on Paulista Avenue.
The demonstrators in the capital were defending Bolsonaro while advocating the closure of Congress and the Federal Supreme Court. The President used his Twitter account to share a message from US President Donald Trump, who said he would classify anti-fascist groups as terrorist organizations.
More than once last week, Bolsonaro criticized the STF’s actions against allies: “It’s over, damn it!” he said after a Federal Police operation that targeted his allies in an inquiry against fake news disseminators.
In Rio de Janeiro, an antifascist and antirracist rally summoned by Rio de Janeiro’s organized soccer club fans and the black movement also ended with police repression outside the Guanabara Palace. Under the slogan “Black lives matter,” activists took to the streets to protest the murder of teenagers like João Pedro Matos Pinto, from São Gonçalo, two weeks ago.
The PM is advancing to take down the fence that demonstrators used. There’s a deafening sound from the tear gas being fired pic.twitter.com/K4jDXUWN7x
– Carla Jimenez (@carlajimenez9) May 31st, 2020
The PM reacted with tear gas to disperse the rally, claiming there would be riots, and blocked traffic, according to O Globo.
Hate for democracy
The weekend’s events came on the same day that Supreme Court Justice Celso de Mello brought to the attention of his peers the “autocratic leaders who despise freedom and hate democracy,” he said in a message. Mello compared Brazil today to Germany under Adolph Hilter. On Saturday evening, the self-styled group “Brazil’s 300,” albeit made up of a handful of protesters – including Sara Giromini, who calls herself Winter – headed for the STF with torches to shout against Justice Alexandre de Moraes. “We’ve come to demand, the STF won’t shut us up… Justice, you coward, we want freedom,” they shouted.
Moraes is conducting the fake news inquiry that affected Sara, seizing her cell phone and notebook. The anti-STF rallies are widely welcomed by President Bolsonaro’s government, which leaves Brazil in a more delicate situation each day. The country is reacting to authoritarian actions by the government and its supporters during a pandemic that has already killed almost 30,000 people, according to official data, excluding those who have not been reported as Covid-19.
At a time when the world watches in amazement the protests in the United States against the unjustified death of George Floyd, a black man murdered by a police officer, the outcome of the São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro rallies with tear gas takes on a metaphorical tone. The radical wave is testing its limits in Brazil, where the President is comfortable supporting anti-democratic rallies to secure the presidency.
Source: El País