Bolsonaro in Florida hospital, 1,500 detained post riots in Brazil; protests similar to US Capitol attack

Supporters of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro on Sunday smashed windows, sifted through the desks of lawmakers and trashed the highest offices.

Driven by conspiracy theories about Bolsonaro’s loss in the last election, they broke into government buildings that are the very symbol of their country’s democracy. Many of the protesters said they wanted the Brazilian army to restore the far-right Bolsonaro to power and oust the newly elected leftist President, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

The protests have drawn immediate parallels with the January 6, 2021 attacks on the US Capitol by the supporters of former President Donald Trump.

The two populist former presidents shared a close political alliance with an overlapping cast of supporters – some of whom helped spread Trump’s lies about losing his re-election due to voter fraud and later parroted Bolsonaro’s similar claims after his own re-election loss last fall.

Bolsonaro was among the last world leaders to recognise Joe Biden’s victory in 2020. Trump was one of Bolsonaro’s few foreign allies, while Bolsonaro often exalted his American counterpart’s leadership, even posting photos of himself watching Trump’s addresses.

He and his son visited Trump at Mar-a-Lago, where they both attended dinners at Trump adviser Steve Bannon’s house. Soon after Sunday’s protests in Brazil were over, Bannon called the protesters “Brazilian freedom fighters” in a video on social media.

The attacks followed months of Bolsonaro exploiting fears about election integrity without offering evidence, similar to Trump in 2020.

In November, Bolsonaro blamed his loss on a software bug and called for most electronic votes to be annulled. Independent experts rejected his claim and Bolsonaro’s bid to annul the votes failed.

On January 6, 2021, while Trump was still the US president, he urged his supporters at his rally on the ellipse to march to the Capitol and stop Congress’ ratification of Joe Biden’s victory. In Brazil, the protest occurred while a few were in government offices and Bolsonaro had already relinquished power.

SEVERAL DETAINED AMID PROTESTS

On Monday, the Brazilian police broke down a pro-Bolsonaro encampment outside a military building and detained some 1,200 people there. Monday’s detainments came in addition to the 300 people who were arrested Sunday during the riot.

The newly elected President Lula and the heads of the Supreme Court, Senate and Lower House signed a letter that denounced the attack and said they were taking legal measures. Justice Minister Flávio Dino said police have begun tracking those who paid for the buses that transported protesters to the capital.

Speaking at a news conference, he said rioters apparently intended their displays to create a domino effect nationwide, and that they could be charged with a range of offenses, including organized crime, staging a coup and violent abolition of the democratic rule of law.

THE BRAZIL ELECTION RESULTS

Results from Brazil’s election — the closest in over three decades — were quickly recognized by politicians across the spectrum, including some Bolsonaro allies, as well as dozens of governments.

Bolsonaro surprised nearly everyone by promptly fading from view.

He neither conceded defeat nor emphatically cried fraud, though he and his party submitted a request to nullify millions of votes that was swiftly dismissed. Since 1996, Brazilians have used an electronic voting system that security experts consider less secure than hand-marked paper ballots because the system leaves no auditable paper trail.

However, Brazil’s system is closely scrutinized and domestic authorities and international observers have never found evidence of it being exploited to commit fraud. Still, Bolsonaro’s supporters refused to accept the results.

They blocked roads and remained camped outside military buildings, urging the armed forces to intervene.

BOLSONARO FINDS HOME IN FLORIDA

Meanwhile, as Brazil reels from mobs of rioters swarming its seats of power, its former leader has decamped to a Florida resort, where droves of supporters flocked to cheer on their ousted president.

Supporters have in recent days travelled to the temporary home of Jair Bolsonaro, a gated community with towering waterslides, for a chance to see him. He signed autographs, hugged children and took selfies with adoring masses, some sporting “Make Brazil Great Again” shirts.

By early afternoon, Bolsonaro’s wife, Michelle, said on social media that he had been hospitalised for observation due to abdominal discomfort related to a 2018 stabbing that has led to multiple hospitalisations in the past.

When asked by local media reporters if the US would send Bolsonaro back to Brazil, national security adviser Jake Sullivan said the Biden administration hadn’t received any requests from Brazil related to the former president.

BIDEN INVITES LULA TO VISIT WASHINGTON

Meanwhile, US President Joe Biden has invited Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to visit Washington in early February, the White House said on Monday. The development comes after the two leaders spoke over the phone about the invasion of government buildings in Brazil – the country’s capital.

Leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva took office on January 1 after defeating Bolsonaro in a runoff election in October, ending Brazil’s most right-wing government in decades.

BRAZIL PROTESTS – CONTENT REMOVED FROM FB, YOUTUBE

On Monday, Facebook parent Meta and Google’s video platform YouTube said they were removing content supporting or praising the weekend ransacking of Brazilian government buildings by anti-democratic demonstrators.

“In advance of the election, we designated Brazil as a temporary high-risk location and have been removing content calling for people to take up arms or forcibly invade Congress, the Presidential palace and other federal buildings,” a Meta spokesman said.

“We are also designating this as a violating event, which means we will remove content that supports or praises these actions,” he said. “We are actively following the situation and will continue removing content that violates our policies,” he added.

A representative for Telegram said the private messaging app was working with Brazil’s government and fact-checking groups to prevent the spread of content inciting violence.

“Telegram is a platform that supports the right to free speech and peaceful protest. Calls to violence, however, are explicitly forbidden on our platform,” a spokesperson told local media.

“Our moderators use a combination of proactive monitoring in public-facing parts of our platform in addition to accepting user reports, in order to remove such content,” he said.