Security in the Brazilian capital has been tightened amid fears staunch supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro are planning a renewed mobilization three days after thousands of extremists launched what the government has described as a failed coup attempt.
According to reports in the Brazilian media, far-right activists called for “a national mega-protest to regain power” on Wednesday afternoon. On Tuesday night, members of the National Public Security Forces in black SUVs could be seen taking position along the esplanade leading to the Congress, the Supreme Court and Brazil’s Presidential Palace, the three buildings attacked and looted during Sunday’s unrest in Brazil .
The capital’s security chief, Ricardo Cappelli, appointed by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva after Sunday’s unrest, promised citizens that “under no circumstances” would such “unacceptable events” be repeated if Bolsonaro supporters returned to the streets on Wednesday afternoon .
Peaceful protests are part of democracy, Cappelli told reporters. “But the right to protest must not be confused with attacks on democratic institutions. The right to demonstrate must not be confused with terrorist behavior.”
As the capital braced for possible fresh outbreaks of unrest, federal police reported that they had arrested one of the suspected organizers of the January 8 raids in a town 51 kilometers from Brasília.
Ana Priscila Azevedo reportedly used a Telegram group to urge tens of thousands of Bolsonaro radicals to pour into the capital to contest the recent left-wing presidential election, which Bolsonaro supporters oppose. “Babylon will fall,” Azevedo is said to have declared.
Senior officials in Brazil’s security apparatus were also implicated in the catastrophic security breach, which one of Lula’s top ministers on Tuesday described as an “act of terrorism” aimed at overthrowing his week-long government.
Insights into Brazil’s failed coup: ‘It’s not patriotism, it’s vandalism’, video
Late on Tuesday, federal police officers searched the home of Bolsonaro’s former justice minister, Anderson Torres, while former Brasilia military police commander Fábio Augusto Vieira was arrested. An arrest warrant has also been issued for Torres, the city’s public security chief at the time of Sunday’s attacks. Like Bolsonaro, who was flown out of Brazil on the eve of Lula’s January 1 inauguration, Torres is currently in the United States, reportedly on vacation, but said he would return to Brazil and appear before authorities. “I’m sure the truth will prevail,” he wrote on social media.
While the federal police continued to pursue the participants and organizers of the right-wing uprising, forensic scientists searched the ruins of the Supreme Court for clues.
On Tuesday afternoon, a team of 98 Federal Police forensic specialists made their way through the destroyed building with a 3,000 points-per-inch camera to photograph fingerprints and handprints on paint cans and broken windows. So far, 46 intruders have been identified by the court’s security camera system.
Smashed windows and vandalized sculptures at the Supreme Court building in Brasilia on Tuesday after Bolsonaro supporters stormed federal buildings. Photo: Carl de Souza/AFP/Getty Images
Permission was granted to the Guardian to enter the building with a group of local and foreign journalists to document the desecration of architect Oscar Niemeyer’s 1958 masterpiece.
Windows on the ground floor of the courthouse were smashed and defaced with a bewildering mix of obscenity and faith. “Fuck you asshole,” read a slogan near the pulverized room where court hearings take place. “Leave our children alone,” read another. A third quoted Psalm 33: “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord.”
Nearby, a bronze bust of Themis, goddess of divine law and order, created by Brazilian sculptor Alfredo Ceschiatti, lay on its side on a carpet of glass and used rubber bullet casings.
“What saddens me the most is the destruction of works of art… busts, photographs, historical documents, paintings by masters, gifts from kings and queens… All of this shows such a low level of courtesy,” one of the investigators commented on the crime scene.
“I’ve been to the scene of many bank explosions, but the damage there is more concentrated. It’s a lot worse here, a lot uglier, a lot more remarkable,” he added.
Minutes earlier, former court president Gilmar Mendes had arrived at the site to view the wreckage of the court he presided over between 2008 and 2010. “I feel like a small part of me has been destroyed. I’ve spent so many years here,” Mendes said, fighting back tears.
“This was (an attack) of monstrous brutality,” the former Supreme Court justice told reporters. “We are shocked and have to ask ourselves how we got to this point and how we can prevent something like this from happening again here.”
Despite fears of further unrest, members of Lula’s government insist they are working to restore normalcy and prevent any further attempts at insurgency.
Two new ministers will take office at the presidential palace on Wednesday afternoon: Minister for Racial Equality Anielle Franco and Sônia Guajajara, head of Brazil’s first ministry for indigenous peoples.
“All Afro and indigenous women in Brazil will take office with us because this government is ours and we own the country,” Franco wrote on Facebook.