Brazil top court orders end of highway blockades

Brazil’s Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes on Monday (Oct. 31) ordered the total unblocking of federal highways where traffic was halted by protesting truck drivers.

The roadblocks were first reported Sunday (30), after it was announced that Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva won the second round of the presidential election.

Under the ruling, the nation’s federal highway police and the state military police must ensure full traffic flow.

In Justice Moraes’s view, the roadblocks “distort the constitutional right of assembly.”

“The factual picture clearly reveals a scenario in which the abuse and illegal as well as criminal distortion in the exercise of the constitutional right to assembly has been causing disproportionate and intolerable effect on the rest of society, which depends on the full functioning of the distribution chains of products and services for the maintenance of the most essential and basic aspects of social life,” the justice stated.

Minister of Justice and Public Safety Anderson Torres reported on his social media he ordered a reinforcement with federal agents in order to normalize traffic on the highways.

Blockades were registered in at least 20 Brazilian states, the highway police reported. Among those with the highest number of blockades are Santa Catarina, Mato Grosso do Sul, and Paraná. According to the agents, 75 demonstrations were dispersed.