President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil has pledged to punish Jair Bolsonaro’s supporters for storming Congress. The Supreme Court was overrun by followers of the deposed far-right leader, and the presidential palace was encircled by them.
Lula went on a tour of the Supreme Court complex after he arrived in the capital to observe the damage himself. But following hours of fighting, police took back control of the structures in Brasilia, the nation’s capital, on Sunday night.
According to the Civil Police of Brasilia, 300 persons have been detained.
Leftist politicians and organizations are calling for pro-democracy demonstrations all around Brazil.
Ibaneis Rocha, the city’s governor, has been demoted by the Supreme Court for a period of 90 days. In addition to failing to stop the brawl, Justice Alexandre de Moraes charged him with remaining “painfully silent” in the face of the assault. For what happened on Sunday, Mr. Rocha has apologized.
Just a week after Lula’s inauguration, hundreds of protesters wearing yellow Brazil football shirts and flags overran police and ransacked the center of the Brazilian state. Before sending the national guard into the city to restore order, the seasoned left-wing leader was obliged to proclaim an emergency.
He also mandated the 24-hour shutdown of the capital’s core, which includes the major boulevard where the government buildings are located.
Bolsonaro last week departed the country rather than participate in the inauguration ceremonies, when he would have handed over the recognizable presidential sash. Mr. Bolsonaro has frequently refused to recognize that he lost the election in October.
About 40 buses that had been used to carry protesters to the capital, according to Justice Minister Flavio Dino, were seized. He described the invasion as a “absurd attempt to impose [the protesters’] will by force.”
Six hours after the rioting started, the 67-year-old, who is thought to be in Florida, condemned the assault and denied being responsible for motivating the rioters in a post on Twitter.
Before he arrived in Brasilia, Lula claimed that the events there had “no precedent in the history of our country” and referred to the violence as “acts of vandals and fascists.”
He also targeted security personnel, charging them with “incompetence, bad faith, or malice” for failing to prevent protesters from entering Congress.
He remarked,”You will see in the images that they [police officers] are guiding people on the walk to Praca dos Tres Powers, we are going to find out who the financiers of these vandals who went to Brasilia are and they will all pay with the force of law.”
Social media videos depict demonstrators yanking a policeman from his horse and assaulting him outside the structure. National TV footage depicts police holding scores of protesters wearing yellow vests outside the presidential palace. Other suspects are seen being brought out of the building with their hands bound behind their backs.
On the lawns in front of the legislature and all down the kilometer-long Esplanada road, which is lined with government buildings and historical sites, protesters had gathered since the morning.
Despite the demonstrators’ efforts, security had appeared to be tight in the hours prior to the chaos, with the roads around the parliament area closed for roughly a block and armed police pairs manning each entry.
Supporters of Bolsonaro set up camps in places all around Brazil, some of them in front of military facilities. This is due to the fact that his most fervent fans want the military to step in and rig the elections they claim were fraudulent.
The camps in Brasilia had been taken down, and there had been no unrest on the day Lula was sworn in, so it appeared that his election had slowed their movement.
However, Sunday’s events demonstrate how hasty those projections were.
