The Senate of Brazil has temporarily deposed President Dilma Rousseff, replacing her for 180 days with her vice president until her impeachment trial concludes.
While millions of Brazilians peacefully took to the streets demanding impeachment before the process began, protests this week in favor of Rousseff grew violent, targeting journalists and police and causing severe traffic delays in major cities.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, a coalition of leftist groups including the Movement of Landless Workers, the Brazil Popular Front, and supporters of Rousseff’s socialist Workers’ Party (PT) closed major streets in states like Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Recife, and Pernambuco, with both human bodies blocking the way and fires designed to block traffic. O Globo reports that socialist protesters blocked traffic in 17 of the nation’s states. Three journalist organizations – the Radio Broadcasters Association, the Brazilian Television (Abert), and the National Association of Newspapers (ANJ) – issued a statement condemning “acts of violence and intimidation against reporters” at these protests.
Protesters posted images of their efforts on Twitter using the hashtag #OcupaTudoContraOGolpe (Occupy Everything Against the Coup):
Amid growing frustration with the protests’ obstruction, some in Brazil chose to defy them. A video circulated in Latin American media Wednesday of a fiery pro-Dilma roadblock broken by a bus driving through it at top speed in the Brazilian state of Paraná:
The protests in favor of Rousseff are markedly more violent than the protests in March calling for a beginning to the impeachment process, which attracted 3.6 million people nationwide. Those same protesters also came out to celebrate the impeachment itself, though the mood at anti-Rousseff events was markedly more cheerful:
Photos: Reuters
Speaking before the presidential palace this morning, Rousseff asserted that he was “a victim of a judicial and political farce” and encouraged Brazilians to oppose the new government, which she threatened could “turn to repression against the opposition.” She has been impeached for using executive orders to take out loans meant to mislead foreign investors into thinking the Brazilian economy was in a better state than it actually was; she insists she has done nothing illegal and, in her speech Thursday morning, railed against politicians, asserting, “I have no offshore accounts; I have never taken bribes.”