Brazil's labor unions and social movements came out to the streets in cities across the country today to commemorate international human rights day and demand the arrest of former president Jair Bolsonaro. Our correspondent Brian Mier has more details about it.
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00:00Brazil's labor unions and social movements came out to the streets in cities across the
00:05country today to commemorate International Human Rights Day and demand the arrest of
00:09former President Jair Bolsonaro.
00:11Our correspondent Brian Meir has more details.
00:15Thousands of Brazilian social movement and labor union activists took to the streets
00:18in 16 of the nation's largest cities on December 10th to demand that no amnesty is given to
00:24former President Jair Bolsonaro and 36 of his cronies who were indicted on November
00:3021st for plotting a violent military coup to prevent Lula da Silva from taking power
00:35after winning the elections in 2022.
00:40We see with the discovery of the assassination plot against President Lula, his Vice President
00:45and the Supreme Court Minister Alexander de Moraes that the situation was even worse than
00:50we had thought.
00:51So we're here today to say, no amnesty, because they tried to take power away from the working
00:55class.
00:59Leaders of Brazil's far right have been working to delegitimize Brazil's court system while
01:03lobbying Congress to pass a law granting amnesty for the hundreds of people who've already
01:08been indicted for the failed coup plot.
01:10But since new evidence released by the federal police shows that they were planning much
01:14more violence than previously thought, the amnesty movement is losing steam.
01:19This is why the social movements believe it is important to increase pressure on Congress
01:24now.
01:27Our challenge is to defeat the logic of a bourgeois justice system which punishes the poor but
01:31doesn't punish the rich and their coup plotting generals.
01:35This logic has been ingrained in the Brazilian system since the military dictatorship, when
01:39the military coup plotters tortured, raped and killed thousands of people and haven't
01:44been punished to this day.
01:45This is why we are fighting for punishment for both Bolsonaro, his coup mongering generals
01:50and for those behind the 1964 coup.
01:54Brazil's attorney general, Paulo Gano, is expected to file criminal charges against
01:59Bolsonaro and his cronies shortly after the new year.
02:04Brian Meir, tell us sir, Recife.
02:09In Brazil, union members and protesters gather in Brasilia to voice their opposition against
02:13an amnesty request for prisoners who took part in a 2022 coup plot to prevent President
02:20Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva from taking office.
02:24The main purpose of today's demonstration is to oppose any possibility of amnesty for
02:29those responsible for the coup attempts and for what we can call the continuing coup that
02:34was the entire previous government.
02:39I and all the other citizens gathered here are against any possibility of amnesty for
02:43the coup plotters who tried to attack Brazilian democracy.
02:48With coups and assassinations against the authorities in power, we have always tried
02:52to make it very clear that this kind of anti-democratic attitude, this kind of anti-democratic planning
02:57has to be dealt with rigorously under the law.