Repression and Resistance in Brasilia: Yesterday's Massive Protest in 20 Images

Protesters spoke out against the corrupt Brazilian President who refuses to resign. The mobilization was also against austerity measures that the government hopes to pass.

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Image from Media Ninja

Riot police and the military cracked down on 150,000 protesters who took to the streets in Brasilia on Wednesday against President Michel Temer. They are calling for his resignation after the latest corruption scandal. Last week, a recording emerged in which Temer endorses bribes to Eduardo Cunha, a jailed politician.

“Out with Temer! chanted the massive crowds. Armed riot police met the demonstrators with tear gas and rubber bullets.

A protester injured by a rubber bullets.

Image from Media Ninja

In an unprecedented decision Temer ordered the military police to patrol the streets of Brasilia for an entire week. This kind of order from a President has not occurred since the military dictatorship. But this morning he had rescind the order due to the public outcry from different sectors of the government, lawyers and social movements.

Image from Media Ninja

Image by Mídia NINJA

Under the banner “Occupy Brasilia”, the demonstration demanded that the president resign and new general elections be held. The right wing forces are gunning for indirect elections in which only the Congress will vote for the replacement of the current president. This would ensure that the regime responsible for the institutional coup against Dilma Rousseff would be preserved. The Workers Party and some sectors of the left call for direct elections, which are likely to bring former President Lula of the Workers Party back to power.

Image by Thiago Macambira / Mídia NINJA

Brasília ainda continua com muitas bombas e manifestantes dispersando no gramado da Esplanada#diretaspordireitos https://t.co/kNVyvBEKU2 pic.twitter.com/A4lCyhT0EQ

— Brasil de Fato (@Brasil_de_Fato) May 24, 2017

The Temer government also wants to impose a series of neoliberal austerity policies, rolling back social and economic rights.

The editor of Esquerda Diário Brazil, Leandro Lanfredi said, “the only way out of the Brazilian crisis for the working class is to call for an immediate general strike to throw out Temer and impose a new Constitutional Assembly. In order to defeat the neoliberal austerity policies, it is necessary for the workers and the people of Brazil impose a government that breaks with the capitalists. They will always try to make us, the workers, pay for the crisis.”

Image from Nunah Alle / Mídia NINJA

The Brazilian crisis is deepening. It remains to be seen whether the workers and the people can impose their own, independent way out of the political and economic crisis, without relying on the Workers’ Party which while in the Presidency, led the austerity plans against the working people.

Image by Media Ninja

Ministérios da Agricultura e Fazenda pegaram fogo; Todos os ministérios foram evacuados #diretaspordireitos https://t.co/kNVyvBEKU2 pic.twitter.com/RD1Q67kxxz

— Brasil de Fato (@Brasil_de_Fato) May 24, 2017

Protesters set fire to the Ministry of Agriculture

Brazil

Brazil Impeachment

Michel Temer

Worker’s Party (PT), Brazil

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In light of the unprecedented migration crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border, we present the following international declaration from the Revolutionary Socialist Organization of Costa Rica, the League of Socialist Workers of Venezuela, the Socialist Workers Movement of Mexico and Left Voice of the United States, all members of the Trotskyist Fraction - Fourth International, alongside the chapters of the international feminist organization, Bread and Roses, of these countries.

Latin America