MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Brazilian lawmaker hides in Congress to avoid court order

Silveira was arrested last year after he released a video through social media with serious threats and insults against the STF judges

Bolsonarist Deputy Daniel Silveira Wednesday tried to avoid a court order by stonewalling law enforcement agents at Brasilia's Parliament building. The officers were there to enforce him wearing a tracking anklet because he is under judiciary probe for threatening democratic institutions and making statements that were construed as an apology for dictatorships.

Silveira stayed the night in his office after Supreme Federal Court (STF) Justice Alexandre De Moraes ordered an anklet be placed on him to monitor his movements.

The magistrate's decision followed Silveira's non-compliance with some judicial measures that, among other things, prevented him from having contact with other people prosecuted in a trial for threats to democratic institutions.

“I am not going to comply. I will not accept it, because that order is illegal and I do not respect it under any hypothesis,” Silveira had said Tuesday evening.

In February last year, Silveira was arrested after he released a video through social media with serious threats and insults against the STF judges, whose dismissal he requested.

He also criticized the constitutional order and praised the times of the military dictatorship (1964-1985), as well as the persecution made by the military regime to the left and “communism”, and suggested his support to murdering all opponents of Jair Bolsonaro's government.

For these reasons, Silveira was suspended from office for six months by the Lower House's Ethics Council in July 2021. He resumed his Parliamentarian duties this year.

Silveira was released last November on the condition that he stayed away from social media or have contact with other people under investigation in the same case. But last weekend he participated in an event organized by hard-line conservative groups which featured some of the people he was barred from meeting. De Moraes took that as a “violation” of the precautionary measures and ordered the Police to impose an electronic anklet on him.