Justice Minister: “No doubt Brazil experienced an attempted coup”
Brazil’s Justice Minister Flávio Dino said there is no doubt there was an attempted coup in the country in the period between October 31, 2022, and January 8, 2023. The statement was made in Rio de Janeiro on Monday (Jun. 19), during an announcement of investments in the state’s public security.
“There is no doubt Brazil experienced an attempted coup d’état between October 31, 2022, and January 8, 2023. This is serious, really serious, and must be very clearly underlined so that it never happens again,” the minister said. “There was a criminal plot aimed at rigging the outcome of the election.”
This has become clearer and clearer in the investigations conducted by the Federal Police, the Prosecution Service, and Congress members, he argued. “We have over 1.3 thousand criminal suits underway in courts across the country, not only in the Supreme Court, which shows the magnitude of this criminal organization.”
Minister Dino lamented the fact that a small group of high-ranking active-duty military personnel were involved in the orchestration of a coup d’état, as per evidence gathered by the police.
“Were there civilians? Yes, there were. Were there honest people being entangled by some kind of alluring authoritarian and extremist discourse? Yes, there were. But there were also political leaders, military leaders, heads of civilian and military power, who were wrongfully participating in an arrangement to tear up the Constitution, trample on democracy, and violate the rights of all the Brazilians who elected the government currently in power.”
The minister also said that the Federal Police will investigate the case of the evangelical pastor who asked God to burst the President Lula’s jaw. “Freedom of expression in Brazil must be in accordance with the law. Everyone has freedom of belief, no doubt. But freedom of belief does not involve the criminal practice outlined in Article 286 of the Criminal Code, which falls under incitement to crime,” he stated.
