More than 400 people have been arrested in Brazil as of late Jan. 8 after protesters breached and attacked the nation’s Congress, the Supreme Court, and presidential palace in the capital of Brasilia, a week after the inauguration of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, APA reports citing the Epoch Times.
Multiple videos from local broadcasters and groups related to Brazil’s former president, Jair Bolsonaro, showed rioters inside the presidential palace, and smashing furniture in Congress and the Supreme Court. Security forces were initially overwhelmed by the rioters.
In posts on Twitter late on Jan. 8, Bolsonaro condemned the attacks on government buildings and pushed back against Lula who had blamed him for the riot.
“Peaceful demonstrations, in the form of the law, are part of democracy,” Bolsonaro said, per a translated version of the Twitter post. “However, depredations and invasions of public buildings as occurred today, as well as those practiced by the left in 2013 and 2017, escape the rule.
“In addition, I repudiate the accusations, without evidence, attributed to me by the current head of the executive of Brazil,” he added. “Throughout my mandate, I have always been within the four lines of the Constitution, respecting and defending the laws, democracy, transparency and our sacred freedom.”
Bolsonaro was responding to Lula, who had earlier in the day blamed Bolsonaro for the assault on the government buildings.
“They took advantage of the silence on Sunday, when we are still setting up the government, to do what they did,” Lula wrote in a series of Twitter posts, referring to the rioters. “And you know that there are several speeches by the former president encouraging this. And this is also his responsibility and the parties that supported him.”
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