Brazilian city councilman was arrested by Alexandre de Moraes for calling Justices of the STF “emperors of Brazil”
The rampant and unrestrained abuse of power and arbitrariness of the Supreme Court of Brazil has now taken on forms dangerously close to full-fledged tyranny.
The councilman from Vitória, the capital city of the Esperito Santo state, Armandinho Fontoura (Podemos), was arrested on Thursday (Dec. 15) by order of the Justice of the Supreme Court (STF), Alexandre de Moraes, for allegedly using his social networks to “attack” the Court.
As of now, lèse majesté exists again in Brazil.
According to Moraes, he was part of a “private digital militia” that allegedly encourages attacks on democracy.
In publications on social networks, Armandinho Fontoura asked to put a “limit in these bandits’ doings” and also called Justices of the STF “emperors of Brazil”, criticizing that, according to the document of the decision issued by Moraes, “exceed the regular exercise of freedom of expression, in a tone that lends itself to incite subversion of order and encourage the breakdown of institutional and democratic normality.
Yesterday, Alexandre de Moraes determined 4 arrests and 23 search and seizure warrants in Espírito Santo in the scope of inquiry 4.781 of what he called arbitrarily “antidemocratic acts”.
INACTION THAT LED TO POLITICAL PERSECUTION
Emboldened by the inaction of Bolsonaro and the Armed Forces, Moraes started yesterday, Dec. 15, large-scale persecution against conservative Brazilian citizens, Brazilian Spring protesters, politicians, journalists, and more.
On Wednesday (Dec. 14), Moraes had said he still had “many people to arrest and many fines to apply” during the 4th seminar “STF in Action”.
Moraes’ speech quoted the previous speech by STF minister Dias Toffoli. He mentioned the 964 arrests made in the United States of those involved in the January 2021 invasion of the Capitol.
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