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News > Latin America

Brazil: Lula Decries Violent Protests, Threatens to Sue Netflix Over 'The Mechanism'

  • Former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva speaks to a crowd of supporters in Curitiba, Brazil.

    Former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva speaks to a crowd of supporters in Curitiba, Brazil. | Photo: @AndreteleSUR

Published 29 March 2018
Opinion

Lula said his judicial and corporate media persecutors are afraid of the fact that he “knows how to fix the country."

Former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio 'Lula' da Silva condemned the violent protests against his re-election campaign as he ended his caravan in Brazil's southern region with a rally in Curitiba Wednesday. Lula branded the violence, including the gunshots fired at his buses, as being “the work of fascists."

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Speaking to a crowd of several thousand people Lula recalled protestors, who threw rocks and eggs at his caravan and onstage at previous events, and those who shot at his buses. “I don't know who they were and I don't care. I just know they were not democrats. They are more like fascists and Nazis; they are more for anything else than for democracy."

He pointed out that his judicial and corporate media persecutors are afraid of the fact that he “knows how to fix the country because when I took over Brazil... this country was in a worse state" than it is now.

During the speech, Lula also promised to sue Netflix for broadcasting The Mechanism, a television series depicting the country's infamous Car Wash investigations. Directed by Jose Padilha and promoted as being a series “loosely inspired by true events,” Lula contested that the TV series is “yet another lie” against him and the Workers Party.

Lula's successor, former Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, said the series falsely uses the character representing him to say “stem the bleeding.” The phrase, a reference meaning to halt the Operation Car Wash corruption investigations by supporting Rousseff's impeachment, was, in fact, made by former Planning Minister Romero Juca. He is currently the president of Senate-imposed President Michel Temer's Brazilian Democratic Movement party. 

Secretly recorded while under threat of being investigated for corruption, Juca told Sergio Machado, the former president of Transpetro, that a “change” in the federal government (led by Rousseff before her impeachment in 2016) would result in a pact that would “stem the bleeding.”

Lula's Workers Party has decided to launch a new campaign urging peace in politics.

RELATED: 
Brazil's Dilma, Latin American Leaders Decry 'Fascist Militias' Attack on Lula's Caravan

The former head of state has so far topped every presidential election poll, including those conducted by Datafolha, Vox Populi, Data Poder 360, Instituto Parana and Ipsos. The latest National Confederation of Transportation/MDA presidential survey, conducted earlier this month, reveals that Lula continues to lead the presidential race in every single scenario researched, according to Reuters.

His two terms in office were marked by a slew of social programs, lifting millions of Brazilians out of poverty and removing the country from the U.N. World Hunger Map.

One of his most successful programs is Family Allowance (Bolsa Familia). Launched in 2003, it provided stipends to families living below the poverty line. In turn, those families must prove their children are attending school and have been vaccinated.

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