Tens of thousands of Brazilians on Sunday demonstrated against a bill that advanced in Congress this week that would reduce the time former president Jair Bolsonaro spends behind bars following his sentence of more than 27 years for attempting a coup.
Protests took place in the capital, Brasilia, and in other major cities across the nation, including Sao Paulo, Florianopolis, Salvador and Recife.
On Copacabana’s boardwalk in Rio de Janeiro, crowds composed of left-wing voters chanted “No amnesty” and “Out with Hugo Motta,” a reference to the speaker of the lower house, which approved the bill on Wednesday last week. It is now with the Senate.
Photo: EPA
“It’s an attempt to protect those who tried to attempt a coup,” said Antonio Edson Lima de Oliveira, a 56-year-old geologist who was at the protest in Rio. “Brazil has already had several dictatorships and they were awful for the country. We never want it to happen again.”
Famed musicians, including Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil, performed in Rio, where the sun was sweltering and the atmosphere both festive and indignant. Many held signs reading: “Congress is the enemy of the people.”
“It’s very important that they’re here, encouraging people to hit the streets, but I think we mustn’t come only to sing, we have to come to actually fight,” said Lavinia Scalia, an organizer of student movements.
Paulinho da Forca, the sponsor of the bill that passed on Wednesday, has said it is aimed at reconciliation and that if it is adopted, the right-wing ex-president’s time behind bars could be reduced to two years and four months.
However, it has to be sanctioned by Braxilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who has said he would veto it.
The legislation would shorten prison sentences for all those convicted — including Bolsonaro — in connection with a riot on Jan. 8, 2023, when Bolsonaro’s supporters invaded government buildings in Brasilia.
Justices said the ex-leader led a criminal organization behind the insurrection, which they said was aimed at overthrowing Lula, who had taken office a week earlier after defeating Bolsonaro in the October 2022 election.
The proposal would reduce Bolsonaro’s prison time by requiring the sentences for two of his convictions to run concurrently rather than consecutively, namely the crimes of attempting a coup and violent overthrow of the rule of law.
The bill would change conditions for full and partial parole, allowing release from full confinement to day parole after serving one-sixth of the sentence, down from one-fourth.
Bolsonaro and his allies had advocated for an amnesty for the former leader, but the legislation passed focuses on reduction of sentences rather than an annulment of convictions.
Even this watered-down version is likely to be modified in the Senate following the protests, said Luciana Santana, a politics professor at the Federal University of Alagoas.
“The composition of the Senate, the mobilizations and the fact that the vote in the lower house took place in the early hours of the morning mean the environment in favor of the bill is not as favorable as it was in the lower house,” she said.
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