Brazil’s Supreme Court Judge Alexandre de Moraes has ordered the Central Bank to freeze the accounts of up to 43 individuals and legal entities suspected of financing the democratic acts and the blockades on several highways in the country to protest Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s electoral victory.
Among these «illicit» protests is the encampment at the Army Headquarters in Brasília in which coup slogans and slogans of military intervention against the institutions have been heard. De Moraes has also given the Federal Police ten days to take statements from the suspects.
De Moraes considers that a «repeated abuse of the right to assembly» is being made, using it in an «illicit» and «criminal» way to call for the non-recognition of the election results, endorsed by the Superior Electoral Court (TSE), reports O Globo’.
It also argues that the «coordinated» displacement of trucks to Brasilia to carry out an «unlawful assembly» in the surroundings of the Army installations «with the purpose of breaking the constitutional order -including calls for a ‘federal intervention’- through an absurd interpretation» of the Constitution, may constitute a crime.
In his decision, De Moraes mentioned the information gathered by the Brazilian Highway Police in which several businessmen «would be financing the anti-democratic acts that are being analyzed», either through food and lodging services, or through the supply of these vehicles.
Since last October 30, thousands of followers of Jair Bolsonaro have been blocking the main roads and highways of the country between prayers and demands for military intervention, in some regions even using minors as human shields.
Bolsonaro had to come out a few days later to disavow them, while Lula da Silva, winner of the elections, reproached the demonstrators for not even knowing why they were protesting and demanded «sportsmanship» to accept the results.
These rallies have left controversial images such as that of dozens of people swearing the flag under the Nazi salute in Santa Catarina, the state where Bolsonaro won 69 percent of the votes in the elections.
