Brazil authorities slap protesters with mass charge, no investigation, says police officer

Brazilian demonstrators last week who stormed the country’s Congress, Supreme Court and presidential office in protest of an alleged fraudulent presidential election are all being charged en masse without investigation. 

Millions of Brazilians have spent months protesting the presidential election, declared in October for Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a Left-wing former president who was imprisoned for corruption. Many insist the election was fraudulent and continue to demand that Right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro retain his seat.   

For over two months, demonstrations have plagued Brazil’s cities and streets after voting machine audits found significant voting regularities which may have helped Lula cross the finish line with 50.7% of the vote, the narrowest margin in Brazil’s history. Some areas also reported zero votes going to Bolsonaro. 

In a letter obtained by Frontline News, a police officer who wishes to remain anonymous and was present at the criminal proceedings says there are now over 1,230 political prisoners related to last week’s protests. All are being slapped with the same "’crimes’ with sentences of 15 years or more,” said the officer, adding they are being charged “all at once, in the same articles, without investigation, without evidence, and without individualization of conduct, that is, of ‘who did what.’” 

Some reportedly committed no crime at all, but are nevertheless being charged by the Lula administration as though they broke into the government facilities. 

The police officer continued: 

In their great majority, humble decent people, entire families whose ‘real crime’ was just being camped in front of the army headquarters, believing they were protected by it, demonstrating for freedom. 

But they were betrayed and "delivered" by the very ‘Judas in uniform’ they believed were protecting them. 

Accused of crimes that, for the most part, were committed by OTHER PEOPLE. 

I wish that every Brazilian who supports this ideological purge could face the look of despair and pleading on the faces of these simple people when they asked if they were really going to be arrested, being fully aware that they had committed no crime, and unable to believe that they would suffer such an injustice. 

The officer had some harsh words for those who cheer the government’s actions against the demonstrators. 

I SINCERELY hope that all those who laugh at or support tyrannical actions like these will be HARDLY COVERED by their consciences, now or when ‘their turn comes’, because it will come, make no mistake, because their turn WILL COME. 

And when your turn comes, or your conscience ‘weighs’, I hope that the sight of the face of a 57-year-old lady, retired, simple, who was in the camp helping to cook for the others, and who learns that she is going to a prison accused of ‘crimes’ with sentences that exceed 15 years, that the sight of her watery eyes closing in a whispered prayer, I sincerely hope that every tear that silently dripped from her face burns you deeply to the bone and weighs tons on your vile conscience. 

You don't feed such a MONSTER without expecting that one day he will bite the hand that fed him. 

These last few days have been the worst of his career, added the police officer, who tried to rescue the elderly and infirm.

Without words, for someone who has worked more than twenty years dealing only with the worst kind of bums, these last two days have been the worst of my entire career, and that I never expected to have to go through. I concentrated on rescuing everyone over sixty from the tents for a quick release. The worst was on the second day when only the under-sixties were left. Sad. Then I tried to select those with proven comorbidities to also be released. The worst thing was to see all the others invariably arrested.  

The officer also made several comparisons to similar injustices suffered by Holocaust victims. 

I had a glimpse of how Schindler felt. Sad. Retirement now is the way to go. 

Our country is sick, seriously sick. Many have no idea what we are living through. The plug hasn't fallen yet. 

Nicaragua, Venezuela and Cuba are too little, we are heading towards the ‘Warsaw ghetto’. And fast, very fast. 

When they start arresting everyone in a building because ‘someone in the building’ is wanted, maybe then we will wake up. That's exactly what they did.