Two years after the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol breach sent shockwaves throughout the United States that continue to this day, Brazil’s main government institutions were breached in eerily similar events. The Jan. 8, 2023, Brazilian riots also happened after right-winger Jair Bolsonaro, nicknamed the “Trump of the Tropics,” lost elections amid claims of irregularities and supporters’ protests eventually turned violent under widely disputed circumstances.
In the past year, many of the same issues—such as the role of media, political bias, and weaponization of government—continue in Brazil, as they have in the United States since Jan. 6.
“Jan. 8, today, for the Brazilian people, has two aspects,” Col. Gerson Gomes, retired Brazilian Army officer and political analyst based in Florida, told The Epoch Times.
“It is interpreted by those who support the [current Lula] administration as a governmental reaction to support and protect democracy. As the opposition sees it, it was a scheme used by the administration to weaponize that protest, supposedly meant to be peaceful, and transform it into a way to criminalize [political] opponents—something that has also happened here in the United States.”
Col. Gomes was a primetime analyst in Brazil’s largest non-left-leaning cable news channel at the time the Jan. 8 events took place. He was eventually deplatformed amid rising concerns about freedom of speech, as media companies self-censored and shut down commentators.
Reports of the events’ aftermath include claims of a politicized justice system with lack of due process for thousands of protesters, censorship and persecution of the press, and evidence of possible omission or cover-up by authorities.
What Happened in Brazil?
The headquarters of Brazil’s three branches of government—the National Congress, the Presidential Office, and the Supreme Court—were breached on the afternoon of Jan. 8, 2023. The damage to public property was widespread, with memorabilia, glass panels, and more destroyed and stolen.After socialist Luiz Inacio “Lula” da Silva won Brazil’s presidential elections on Oct. 30, 2022, by a razor-thin margin, people camped continuously in front of military facilities throughout the country protesting the results and alleging irregularities in the elections, including the deplatforming of right-wing voices and voter fraud.
Many asked for military intervention, or circulated rumors about President Lula not taking office. Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court, which oversees elections, maintains that the vote was free and fair, but some conservatives say the court is compromised.
“The protesters who already had been appearing in front of many military facilities since the end of the run-off elections in October were also in Brasília, in front of the army headquarters,” Col. Gomes told the Epoch Times. “They were asked not to protest on Jan. 1 and obliged. The Federal District’s police pointed out that protests should be avoided on the day of Lula’s swearing in ceremony and this was respected. So protests were coordinated for the next Sunday, Jan. 8.”
“Protesters came to Brasília from many parts of the country, they started arriving on the 7th and, on Jan. 8, escorted by the police, in an orderly fashion and with police inspection, they moved into the plaza [to protest]. The problem was that, while this occurred, even before this group got to the [government headquarters], there was already a big concentration of people going from other places in the city and elsewhere, who were already entering the buildings and vandalizing them,” Col. Gomes said.
Observers claim left-wing agitators fueled the violence, which appears to be supported by video shot by protesters in Brasília.
Allegations of a Biased Justice System
“We have been putting together a report on it,” Ezequiel Silveira, a lawyer for 30 defendants being prosecuted for Jan. 8-related charges, told The Epoch Times. “It started out at about 20 pages and now it is at almost 100. It is a report about the rights violations that have occurred in these Jan. 8 cases. Mr. Silveira is also a lawyer for the Association of Relatives and Victims of Jan. 8.He said there were myriad human rights violations perpetrated indiscriminately against defendants.
“On Jan. 8, those who were arrested did not eat for almost 24 hours. On Jan. 9, there were people who were arrested without being properly told they were under arrest, they were misled to go into the Federal Police academy without knowing they were detained, they only received proper notice, for some people, about 48 hours after being taken by Brazilian authorities.”
The Federal Police is the Brazilian equivalent of the FBI.
“We had overcrowded detention facilities, people who kept the same clothes for 1 week, people who had nowhere to sleep. [We’ve had] cells supposed to accommodate eight people being used by up to 22 people. We’ve had cases in which 140 women were kept at the same wing of a detention facility having to share three showers and one sink—used to brush their teeth, wash their clothes and drink water,” Mr. Silveria said.
Claudio Luís Caivano, also a lawyer representing myriad Jan. 8 defendants, corroborated Mr. Silveira’s claims.
He told The Epoch Times it is documented that “the people arrested on Jan. 8, that were held during Jan. 9 and 10 of 2023 ... did not have their dignity respected. There were not enough bathrooms, they didn’t have the bare minimum, the bare minimum condition for basic hygiene, lack of water, lack of food, lack of mattresses. They slept on the floor of a sports court used to train policemen.”
Mr. Caivano is the author of “Jan. 8: The Untold Story.” He said there has been a lack of due legal process for defendants in Jan. 8-related cases.
“Everything that has happened is the trashing of our laws and mainly of the 5th article of [our] federal constitution that protects our fundamental rights and guarantees,” Mr. Caivano said.
“We’re facing ‘fishing expeditions’. You arrest the person, let the person go, you let her keep her phone and then you go get it to see who she’s been talking to,” Mr. Caivano said, referring to a lawyer who was arrested on a Jan. 8-related case, then released with an electronic ankle bracelet and restrictions to her activities and finally had her phone and computer confiscated by authorities.
Mr. Silveira agrees on the lack of due process, saying “we could sit here all day and list irregularities on this.”
Their remarks come amid concerns about a rise in Supreme Court politicization and possible bias.
“[Supreme Court] Justice Alexandre de Moraes has subpoenaed the accuser’s witnesses, but has refused to subpoena the defender’s witnesses, so in the hearings, we’ve only had the accusing side’s testimonies,” Mr. Silveira said.
“We can’t say this happened within constitutional boundaries, because you’re denying the defendant the basic right to have heard the testimonies he wants to be heard.”
He told the Epoch Times that in Brazilian law, penalties must be given on an individual, case-by-case basis, but that the Brazilian Supreme Court is using the thesis of “multitudinal” crimes—committed by many—to hold people accountable “since there was no individualized proof of peoples’ conduct.”
He said that this is making some people accountable for the crimes of others.
“We’ve had over 30 people convicted and there is no proof that any of them broke or vandalized anything. It’s simply that the vandalism happened and these people were there. But there is no proof they did the vandalism. Still they have been convicted.”
Concerns about human rights violations and due process came back into the spotlight after one person arrested in a Jan. 8-related case, Clériston Pereira da Cunha, died in detention. According to Mr. Silveira and Mr. Caivano, his lawsuit included irregularities. Despite continuous information being provided to authorities about his underlying health conditions, he was kept detained with no conviction and eventually passed away due to illness.
Lawyers for Jan. 8 defendants are engaging with human rights and bar organizations domestically and abroad to raise awareness and press for accountability.
Mr. Silveira said he and others have “pushed forward over 100 human right abuses allegations,” brought to the attention of the Washington-based Inter-American Court of Human Rights, under the Organization of American States. He said the same report has been delivered to the American Bar Association.
Aftermath
The follow-up to the Jan. 8 breach has increased political tensions in the country, as narratives about what occurred remain disputed.Immediately after the breach, President Lula declared a “federal intervention” on the security of the Federal District, which holds the capital city of Brasília, giving extraordinary power to Ricardo Garcia Capelli, the right-hand man of Minister of Justice Flávio Dino—both lifelong members of the Communist Party of Brazil that recently shifted to the Brazilian Socialist Party.
The measure gave him the ability, for three weeks, to overtake all decision-making related to the region’s security and, according to President Lula, was needed because he believed the local administration’s policing condoned the Jan. 8 events.
Mr. Capelli’s intervention included removing a number of police officers from office, some who were later on arrested and are under investigation.
The Brazilian president told the press soon after that his impression was one of attempted insurrection and overthrow of government—a narrative the Brazilian left wing has amplified and used to disenfranchise political opponents.
Brazilian mainstream media outlets have referred to people present on Jan. 8, and occasionally to Bolsonaro supporters who protested election results more broadly, as “terrorists.”
Controversy emerged about the Lula administration’s approach to the events in April, when CNN Brasil leaked security camera footage from the breach showing General Gonçalves Dias, President Lula’s head of institutional security, and members of his cabinet apparently checking whether doors inside the buildings were open or closed, shaking hands and talking to protesters there, and even offering them water.
The footage had been previously classified, with press requests to see them being denied. Gen. Dias has been often described as a close aide to President Lula. He resigned soon after the scandal broke.
Allies of President Bolsonaro pressed for a congressional investigation to investigate “the events and omissions” of Jan. 8. After resisting pressure for an investigation, Lula allies accepted an investigation and eventually came to dominate the committee responsible for it.
Amid the investigations, President Lula’s minister of justice, Flávio Dino, was asked to provide security camera footage from 185 cameras. He complied for only four cameras and told Congress the rest had been deleted due to a contractual flaw with a third-party company.
The congressional investigation resulted in a report asking the Brazilian justice to indict 61 people, including former President Jair Bolsonaro, for their “attack on democracy and the rule of law.”
The US Connection
The similarities between what happened in both countries have not gone unnoticed in the United States. Forty-six Democrat members of Congress wrote President Joe Biden about it in a letter sent on Jan. 11, 2023, and used the episode to reinstate their criticism of former President Donald Trump.It went on to ask for an FBI investigation into the matter, researching whether the attacks were planned on American soil, and holding alleged Florida-based conspirators accountable. The Democrats also asked the U.S. government to review President Bolsonaro’s diplomatic status and visa. The former Brazilian president traveled to the United States on Dec. 30, 2022, arriving the day before Brazil’s transfer of power to President Lula. He returned to Brazil three months later, on March 30, 2022.
As congressional Democrats sent their letter to President Biden, a joint statement was published by 35 American and 39 Brazilian lawmakers quoting these terms and citing meetings between President Bolsonaro’s son, Congressman Eduardo Bolsonaro, President Donald Trump, and former aides Jason Miller and Steve Bannon as evidence of coordination.
The letter was articulated by the Washington Brazil Office, an organization that describes itself as “an independent institution” whose objective is to support cooperative relations between Brazil and the United States in a broad range of sectors. Despite calling itself independent, its advisory board is broadly tied to Brazilian progressive and socialist organizations involved in the Lula administration.
