Brazil’s justice minister vowed there would be no amnesty for radical supporters of right-wing ex-president Jair Bolsonaro who last month attacked Congress, the Supreme Court and the presidential palace in Brasília.
Pledge to destroy right-wing extremism, Flávio Dino said in an interview: “This is very serious for Brazilian democracy, so the response must be firm and respect the principle of proportionality: if you have a serious crime, you must have a firm answer.”
The uprising on January 8 was not an “isolated event” but a symptom of wider extremism in Latin America’s largest country, he said.
More than 1,000 people were arrested after the riots, when thousands of pro-Bolsonaro protesters stormed and destroyed government and judicial institutions. He claimed the October election in which left-wing president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva defeated right-wing populists was rigged.
“Our hope is that these people will be convicted,” Dino said, denying that the government could grant amnesty to ease political tensions.
“[An amnesty] It has not been considered or will happen, precisely because it will only encourage other similar actions in Brazil and in other countries,” he said.
Opposition politicians had proposed the scheme late last year following post-election violence by Bolsonaro’s supporters.
Since Lula’s election there have been several events aimed at disrupting the new government, including the planned bombing of Brasília’s airport in December, Dino said.
Two people have been arrested in connection with the plot, while a third suspect is missing.
“The people who planned the bombing also sought long-range rifle training. On the cell phone, there was a conversation where one of them was looking for information about weapons suitable for long-range shooting. There was a long dialogue with the instructor about this,” said Dino.
A lawyer and former governor of the northeastern state of Maranhão, Dino described the January violence as “undeniably” an attempted coup. The rioters hope their movement will spread across the country and push the military to intervene and oust Lula, he said.
“Why is this not happening? In my opinion, because of the extreme violence used. That upsets the fence-sitters – and here I’m referring to the armed forces, the police force – to not get involved.
Bolsonaro, who is serving a single term between 2019 and 2022, has sought to end the violence in Brasília, saying the rioters had “crossed the line”. But many see the former president as a liability. After the election, he refused to admit defeat and supported the “right to protest” of his supporters.
Since the end of last year, Bolsonaro has been living in Florida in the US, although he has told the media that he will return to Brazil in the coming weeks.
The state’s Supreme Court named him in a criminal investigation as potentially responsible for the disorder. The electoral court is also processing 14 lawsuits against him related to the riots and the presidential campaign. Bolsonaro has denied wrongdoing and involvement in the riots.
“I can’t expect the conclusion of the ongoing investigation, so I can’t say that Bolsonaro is responsible. But it’s clear that he was at least the inspiration for the event,” said Dino.
The core of the investigation is to find out who funded the protesters, especially the hardline groups who camped outside the military base calling for military intervention in the weeks after the election.
Much of the funding came from individual donations by Bolsonaro’s grassroots supporters, but investigators also noted the involvement organized by “people from agribusiness who provide trucks, tractors and food to the camp”, he said.
The minister also blamed the riots on the neglect of Brasília state officials, including governor Ibaneis Rocha, who has been removed from his post for “absence” in his duties, according to a Supreme Court order. Anderson Torres, the country’s security chief at the time of the disruption, was arrested after returning to Brazil from the US. Investigators have found an unsigned decree in his house that seeks to overturn the election results.
Dino dismissed claims from Bolsonaro supporters that the rioters were persecuted because of their political beliefs.
“These people are not imprisoned because of their opinions or because they dislike the government. They are imprisoned because they turned their dislike of the government into physical destruction of the state headquarters,” he said.