Protesters against Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro have challenged police in the capital after the latest round of arrests of critics of the leader under a dictatorship-era national security law.
Four protesters were arrested Thursday in Brasilia after calling Bolsonaro a “genocide” for his treatment of the coronavirus pandemic and showing a cartoon depicting the president as a Nazi. But on Friday, police silently watched an hour-long protest against Bolsonaro in the capital organized by about 40 people.
The national security law, which dates from 1983, near the end of the country’s military dictatorship, states that it is a crime to harm the heads of the three branches of government or expose them to danger. This vague definition has recently been used to arrest or investigate Bolsonaro’s critics.
Katia Garcia, a geography teacher, said she appeared before the president’s office on Friday because the arrests had inspired him.
“They were imprisoned because the‘ genocidal ’description fits our president very well,” Garcia said, wearing a face mask and a face shield. “It has contributed to the collapse of our health care system due to lack of vaccines. The police cannot silence us.”
There have been previous charges of breaking news against prominent critics of the president, including a newspaper columnist, a political cartoonist and a popular YouTube star, but the law is being used more and more against ordinary citizens. Courts have not confirmed any of the arrests so far, but lawyers are showing alarms because the tactic is becoming commonplace.
Both demonstrations in Brasilia called for the removal of Bolsonaro due to the alleged failures of his administration in the pandemic, which has caused nearly 290,000 deaths in Brazil. The country has reported nearly 3,000 deaths each day this week.
In several cases, the president has complained of being unfairly insulted, last Thursday night during a live Facebook broadcast.
“I am called a dictator. I want you to point out something I did in two years and two months that was autocratic, ”he said while complaining about a newspaper column that used the word genocide to describe it.
Brasilia police said Thursday that the four detained protesters violated the national security law “when they displayed a swastika associated with the symbol of the President of the Republic.” But Brazilian federal police, who decide whether cases filed by local police deserve to go ahead with crimes against national security, dismissed the case and released three of the four protesters. One was held with a pending order from a previous case.
However, federal police have conducted more than 80 investigations under security law during the first two years of Bolsonaro and more than ten in the first 45 days of 2021, according to the newspaper O Globo. The annual average before the Conservative leader took office was 11.
The cases appear to be aimed almost entirely at Bolsonaro’s critics, according to human rights organizations and activists.
A case last year involved a sociologist and a businessman who paid for two billboards that insulted Bolsonaro saying it was not worth a piece of gnawed fruit. This investigation was requested by the Minister of Justice, André Mendonça, who described it as a crime against the president’s reputation. He was fired in October.
On Monday, police invoked the law to force Felipe Neto, a popular youtuber, to testify after he referred to Bolsonaro as a “genocide” in one of his broadcasts. Federal police dismissed the case two days later amid a public outcry.
Neto, who was named by Time magazine last year as one of the 100 most influential people in the world, was also harmed in November with allegations of minor corruption. These charges were also dropped.
“From the beginning, I knew that this attempt at intimidation was not intended to scare me. It was to scare the Brazilian people, “Neto told The Associated Press.
“I have the means to defend myself, but most teachers, journalists and members of civil society do not,” added Neto, who this week set up a legal defense fund to help everyone facing similar charges to criticize. Bolsonaro and need a lawyer.
O Globo said in an editorial Friday that the spirit of the national security law goes against Brazil’s constitution in promoting civil liberties.
“National security law should be repealed and replaced by a more modern tool that is able to reconcile the protection of the rule of law and respect for individual rights,” the newspaper said. “Among them is full and essential freedom of expression.”