MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Demonstration staged in São Paulo against Sunday's events

The protesters also called for the arrest of former President Jair Bolsonaro

Demonstrators marched through the streets of São Paulo Monday to demand that no amnesty be granted to the perpetrators of Sunday's riots in Brasilia, Agência Brasil reported.

Popular movements called early Monday evening for the punishment of the invaders of the headquarters of the three branches of government: the Planalto Palace, the National Congress, and the Federal Supreme Court (STF).

The main slogan heard at the protest was “no amnesty” so that those who promoted, encouraged, or financed the acts in the Federal District be held accountable.

Natália Szermeta, from the national coordination of the Homeless Workers Movement (MTST) and president of the Lauro Campos Foundation, evaluated as “necessary and forceful” the measures adopted so far by the representatives of the three branches of government. The protesters also called for the arrest of former President Jair Bolsonaro.

“More than the institutional responses, the Brazilian people, who elected Lula, need to go to the streets, demonstrate and ensure a living democracy that respects people's freedom of expression, whether individually or politically, whether criticizing or supporting the government, but within what is allowed in Brazilian democracy,” Szermeta said.

The terrorist actions in Brasilia led to the depredation of public property and the destruction of pieces of incalculable cultural and historical value. The participants of the act in the federal capital do not accept the result of the October elections won by Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and are calling for a military coup in the country. Many of them have been camping since last year in front of army barracks.

Teachers Flávio Batista, 41, and Jussara Batista, 40, came to Paulista Avenue with their two teenage daughters and niece. “We need to position ourselves about the absurdity that happened yesterday, to show that most of society is not in favor of that. And show them, who are young, to understand the value of the Democratic State of Law,” said Flávio. Jussara is a history teacher and says she doesn't understand how it is possible to defend a dictatorial state. “It is important to give reference to teenagers. Everything we lived through in the military dictatorship here in Brazil. There was so much struggle for the conquest of democracy and to see movements that affront this right, of freedom, of opinion, of political participation. It was an arduous struggle and we have to keep fighting.”

Also participating in the demonstration was indigenous leader Sônia Ara Mirim, from the Jaraguá Indigenous Land, in the São Paulo capital. “Today was the inauguration of Sônia Guajajara, our Minister of the Original Peoples, and unfortunately all this happened in Brasilia. Being here is a way to represent these peoples that were massacred by the former government [of Jair Bolsonaro],” she said.

Representatives of political parties and organizations, parliamentarians, landless, women's, black, and student movements, among others, were also participating in the demonstration.

(Source: Agencia Brasil)