Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro lashed out at Black Lives Matter activists and people taking part in pro-democracy rallies, calling them unemployed, pot-user terrorists.
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"We are witnessing groups of marginal terrorists who want to break Brazil... They are threatening us," the far-right president said, referring to the anti-racism demonstrations carried out in Sao Paulo on June 1.
After asking the State of Goias Governor Ronaldo Caiado to confront the protesters harshly, Bolsonaro disparagingly referred to citizens who are rejecting his administration.
"Generally, they are marginalized people, terrorists, pot-users, unemployed people who do not know what the economy is about. They don't know what it's like to work to earn their daily bread,” the Brazilian president said.
"They want to break Brazil in the name of a democracy that they never knew and for which they never worried," he added.
Pro-democracy protests are taking place all over this South American country in response to rallies organized by the Brazilian far-right that is calling on the former Captain's fans to support his government to shut down both Congress and the Supreme Court.
"Here Bolsonaro threatens us. However, since the 70s, we know that terrorism is a dictatorship! Bolsonaro terrorist. Step out Bolsonaro. Elections now." The meme reads, "OMG! The old man is left in serious condition for protesting against racism and police violence in the U.S. The policeman pushes him, he falls and hits his head!"
Bolsonaro also announced that policies to make arms imports cheaper will be implemented soon, which will benefit the Armed Forces, the police, and firefighters.
These statements were made in the Aguas Lindas city where Bolsonaro, who does not wear a protective mask in public events, greeted his supporters profusely with his hand as he headed for the inauguration of his administration's first field hospital.
On Thursday, Bolsonaro appointed Colonel Antonio Elcio Franco as Health Minister to replace paratrooper General Eduardo Pazuello, who temporarily assumed the leadership of that institution on May 16.