Brasilia, Brazil
CNN
—
A person clenched his fist as he squeezed his higher physique by the small window of a bus leaving the Brazilian Federal Police Headquarters in Brasilia on Tuesday.
“Victory shall be ours,” he screamed. “That is our freedom!”
He is likely one of the greater than 1,500 supporters of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro who have been arrested after breaking into the nation’s Congress, Supreme Court docket and Presidential Palace this previous Sunday – some armed with knives, axes and even grenades – in scenes harking back to the January 6 Capitol riot final yr in the US.
Many are actually being launched by authorities after processing by the Federal Police and won’t face expenses.
“Our flag won’t ever be pink,” he stored chanting, in reference to leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s Employees Celebration.
Subsequent to him, fellow Bolsonaro supporter Wagner Lopes Loureiro was equally animated after spending two nights in jail. “At all times! I’ll all the time proceed to combat,” he mentioned. “I can’t let this shame proceed.”
In footage: Bolsonaro supporters storm Brazilian Congress
The pair, like lots of Bolsonaro’s supporters concerned in Sunday’s assault on Brazil’s seat of presidency, refuse to acknowledge the outcomes of Brazil’s nationwide presidential vote final yr, which noticed Lula narrowly win one of many tightest contests in a long time.
Authorities have launched a big portion of the pro-Bolsonaro protesters arrested in reference to the riots and ransacking of presidency services in Brasilia.
As they go away, most deny any wrongdoing.
Amongst those that stay in custody, one protester informed CNN that she had entered authorities buildings together with the protesters who compelled their method in, but additionally denied being a part of any violence.
“Proper now (the police) are nonetheless interrogating folks. Yesterday they did it with the oldest and people with well being issues,” she mentioned of the scene contained in the police headquarters.
“It’s chaos right here as a result of we don’t know something, they’ll’t say precisely if persons are imprisoned, in the event that they’re going to get out,” she mentioned.
So many protesters have been taken into custody since Sunday that authorities needed to home them inside a gymnasium on the headquarters. Many have been allowed to maintain their telephones, some sending footage and video of the placement.
The jailed protester informed CNN that she had spent 50 days protesting outdoors the Brazilian military headquarters in Brasilia, hoping the navy would intervene to overturn the election she believes was stolen from Bolsonaro.
The previous president had stoked issues about Brazil’s electoral system forward of the election by criticizing the nation’s digital poll system and speculating that it may very well be corrupted. He additionally refused to explicitly concede the vote. Nonetheless, Brazil’s navy discovered no signal of vote-rigging within the election and Bolsonaro has condemned Sunday’s riots.
“Our intention? Not agreeing with every thing that was taking place,” the protester mentioned. “The poll containers, we maintain claiming this on a regular basis, asking for assist from the Armed Forces, to assist the folks. As a result of it was their coup.”
For her, on the coronary heart of the problem is Lula, a two-time former president who loved nice reputation in earlier phrases however later served time on corruption expenses. Lula’s conviction was annulled on a jurisdictional technicality by a Brazilian choose in March 2021. The choose ordered Lula’s case be retried within the right jurisdiction, clearing the way in which for his political rebound.
“I don’t settle for Lula,” she mentioned. “We didn’t agree that he needs to be president and we wished to understand how many individuals voted for the opposite facet.”
She says she’s not a terrorist, as a result of she was unarmed. “I’m not a terrorist. I don’t have weapons,” she mentioned. “I couldn’t see who began it. It was fast.”
And he or she doesn’t remorse her function in one of many darkest days in Brazilian democracy.
“I don’t remorse it. I don’t remorse it. As a result of I wasn’t armed, I didn’t go along with a masks, I didn’t go along with goggles. I didn’t go along with a bomb. I used to be there democratically, for the way forward for my kids, for one thing I consider,” she mentioned.
“We got here in search of our future. Isn’t it democratic for us to make an act for one thing?”
However for many of Brazil – and even lots of those that would have most popular Bolsonaro to stay president – Sunday’s riots have been an affront to the very democracy she believes she’s defending.