January 8, 2023

Siege Is Over After Extreme Right-Wing Bolsonaro Supporters Stormed Brazilian Capital

“Brasília has its Capitol day.”

Supporters of Brazilian former President Jair Bolsonaro clash with the police during a demonstration outside the Planalto Palace in Brasilia on January 8, 2023.Photo by Evaristo Sa/AFP/Getty

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

In scenes reminiscent of the January 6 attack on the US Capitol by supporters of former President Donald Trump, crowds of supporters who appear to back former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro stormed that country’s major government buildings, including the presidential offices, legislative building, and Supreme Court, on Sunday. While the situation continues to develop, images and videos posted on Twitter by people at the scene showed large swarms of attackers, mostly clad in the bright yellow associated with Bolsonaro surging into the buildings.

In responding to the crisis, Senate President Rodrigo Pacheco said,  “I vehemently repudiate these anti-democratic acts, which must urgently face the force of law.”

Other Tweets, apparently posted from inside the buildings, show rioters wearing Brazilian flags and Bolsonaro’s trademark yellow, ransacking smoke-filled rooms and corridors.

Brazilian army troops appeared to be on the scene and preparing to confront the rioters.

The attackers are also destroying the Supreme Court, which, according to the online news service UOL, had enhanced security to try to prevent this from happening.

Bolsonaro held Brazil’s presidency from 2019 until late last year when he was defeated in a close election by his liberal rival Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. While in office, Bolsonaro tied himself closely to Trump, with both men exhibiting a similar kind of authoritarian-tinged hard-right wing populist conservative ideology. Following his defeat, Bolsonaro refused to acknowledge Lula’s win but has largely stayed out of the limelight even as his supporters continued to rally around his cause.

Bolsonaro’s former minister of justice and current public security chief of Brasilia, Anderson Torres, says “Criminals will not go unpunished.”

Brazilian political commentators are drawing a direct line between January 6 attack at the US Capitol and this attack, with Brazilian commentator Rodrigo Rangel tweeting, “Brasília has its Capitol day.” 

Later that day, security officials took control of the situation, and President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva addressed the nation.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

WE'LL BE BLUNT.

We have a considerable $390,000 gap in our online fundraising budget that we have to close by June 30. There is no wiggle room, we've already cut everything we can, and we urgently need more readers to pitch in—especially from this specific blurb you're reading right now.

We'll also be quite transparent and level-headed with you about this.

In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

You're here for reporting like that, not fundraising, but one cannot exist without the other, and it's vitally important that we hit our intimidating $390,000 number in online donations by June 30.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. It's going to be a nail-biter, and we really need to see donations from this specific ask coming in strong if we're going to get there.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT.

We have a considerable $390,000 gap in our online fundraising budget that we have to close by June 30. There is no wiggle room, we've already cut everything we can, and we urgently need more readers to pitch in—especially from this specific blurb you're reading right now.

We'll also be quite transparent and level-headed with you about this.

In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

You're here for reporting like that, not fundraising, but one cannot exist without the other, and it's vitally important that we hit our intimidating $390,000 number in online donations by June 30.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. It's going to be a nail-biter, and we really need to see donations from this specific ask coming in strong if we're going to get there.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate