HORROR IN BRAZIL: Shocking Footage Shows Bolsanaro Supporters Attacking Police in Violent Coup Attempt
AP Photo/Eraldo Peres
Supporters of a President who lost his re-election and refuses to attend his successor’s inauguration stormed congressional buildings and violently clashed with police as they demanded he stay in power. The Jan. 6, 2021 headlines from Washington, D.C. are being repeated on Jan. 8, 2023 in Brazil’s capital, and the video footage is similarly disturbing.
Like former President Donald Trump, former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro promoted baseless claims of election fraud before the ballots were even counted in his narrow loss last October to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who was inaugurated earlier this month.
Bolsonaro defied longstanding Brazilian tradition of the outgoing Brazilian president handing over the presidential sash to his successor and instead traveled to Florida, renting a house in a gated community near Disney, just south of Orlando. His supporters have been camped out in the capital city of Brasilia for months, and swarmed into the government buildings that host the Congress, the presidential palace and offices, and Supreme Court on Sunday.
The scenes of protesters wearing flags, yelling at police, and knocking over metal barricades as they breached key government buildings were sadly reminiscent of the Jan. 6 scene from Washington, and the violence ramped up as the afternoon progressed.
Photos and videos posted by social media users showed the Bolsonaristas “ransacking” offices and physically clashing with police who were fighting to retake control.
https://twitter.com/davidrkadler/status/1612166212057956352?s=20&t=mZ2iq1JZnAZKgAcYIDINHA
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The White House condemned the violent protests via a statement issued by National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan voicing America’s “unwavering” support for the country’s “democratic institutions.”
“Brazil’s democracy will not be shaken by violence,” Sullivan added.
In a press conference from Araraquara, a city in the southeastern Brazilian state of São Paolo, Lula condemned the protests as “barbaric,” as reported by CNN Senior Latin Affairs Editor Rafael Romo, slamming the pro-Bolsonaro protesters as “fascists” and “everything that is abominable in politics, to invade the government headquarters, the headquarters of Congress and the headquarters of the Supreme Court like true vandals destroying everything in their path.”
“All the people who did this will be found and punished,” Lula vowed.
The Brazilian president was in Araraquara to visit areas damaged by recent heavy floods.
Romo also reported to CNN Newsroom anchor Jim Acosta that the police had deployed tear gas canisters on the protesters, who had “destroyed” many of the legislatives offices in the building that houses Brazil’s Congress, breaking down doors and windows and other acts of vandalism.
Watch the video clips above, via Twitter and CNN.
This post has been updated with additional content.
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