{"id":147304,"date":"2019-11-11T12:00:56","date_gmt":"2019-11-11T12:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=147304"},"modified":"2019-11-18T08:32:21","modified_gmt":"2019-11-18T08:32:21","slug":"brazil-lula-is-free","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2019\/11\/brazil-lula-is-free\/","title":{"rendered":"Brazil: Lula Is Free!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Supreme Court Verdict Was Not Directed at Lula, but at the Undemocratic Nature of the Judicial System in Brazil<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Brazilian ex-president Lula was freed on Friday, after 580 days in prison, following a Supreme Court ruling.\u00a0 \/ Gibran Mendes<\/p><\/div>\n

9 Nov 2019 – <\/em>Just before 6 p.m. on Friday the 8th of November, Brazil\u2019s former president Luiz In\u00e1cio Lula da Silva walked out of his\u00a0prison in Curitiba (Brazil). Lula went to prison in April last year on a 12-year sentence. Five hundred and eighty days of prison are now over<\/a>, as the Federal Supreme Court ruled that inmates who have not yet exhausted their appeals should not be held in prison.<\/p>\n

In addition to Lula, about 5,000 Brazilians can be released based on the Supreme Court\u2019s decision. According to the National Council of Justice (CNJ) this is the number of people arrested, exclusively and specifically, by conviction in second instance \u2013 and who were not, for example, target of preventive imprisonment. However, there are more than 190,000 prisoners in Brazil \u2013 the majority, black and poor \u2013\u00a0 sentenced without trial, including those who were sentenced only in the first instance, and are imprisoned preventively.<\/p>\n

The Supreme Court verdict was not directed at Lula, but at the undemocratic nature of the judicial system which had held people in prison before they had exhausted their appeals. Lula\u2019s situation mirrored that of these thousands of other prisoners. It was as part of a judicial criticism of the unjust system that Lula was able to be free.<\/p>\n

But as Lula walked out of his cell and into the Free Lula encampment across the road from the prison, he signalled the importance of the Free Lula (Lula Livre) campaign of international solidarity that went from Curitiba across Latin America, and indeed across the world. From the Free Lula encampment across from his prison, comrades would hold vigils and wish him thrice a day with greetings of Good Morning, Good Afternoon, and Good Evening. This Friday, November 8th, Lula was able to be greeted not by shouts of solidarity, but in person<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The solidarity campaign drew in jurists and intellectuals, politicians, and celebrities, a range of people who felt that the imprisonment of Lula was unjust. What had become very clear was that the legal mechanisms had become a political instrument of the elite to attack the left politicians and left movements. The collaboration between the government prosecutor and judge Sergio Moro<\/a> indicates that there was this weaponization of the Law \u2013 what is known as Lawfare \u2013 to prevent the Workers\u2019 Party from winning elections, and to make sure that the Brazilian elites hold power. What \u2018Free Lula\u2019 meant was not only the freedom of Lula, but also an end to Lawfare as an instrument against the people.<\/p>\n

Lula walked out of his cell, but the case against him \u2013 a case with little evidence \u2013 remains<\/a>. Popular pressure will continue to completely annul this persecution of Lula. There is little doubt the Free Lula campaign will continue to mobilize support so that the courts declare that Lula is innocent and allow him his full political rights. The Operation Car Wash<\/a> was not just used to put Lula in prison, but to make sure that he \u2013 who is supremely popular in Brazil \u2013 cannot run for office again<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Lula\u2019s popularity comes both from the positive aspects of his presidency (when his government reduced poverty and expanded educational opportunities) and from his leadership against the neoliberal and neofascist governments of Temer and Bolsonaro. Out of prison, Lula\u2019s voice will once more sharply turn on the hideous politics of Bolsonaro.<\/p>\n

Lula is to go to make a statement to the nation from the office of a trade union in S\u00e3o Paulo. This is where he belongs, inside a workers\u2019 office<\/a>, amongst the people. Lula emerged as a central figure of the Brazilian people during the historic strikes of 1978 and 1979, which played a key role in ending the military dictatorship in Brazil. It is from the workers\u2019 land that he will make his stand. Over the course of the Free Lula struggle, it became clear that Lula was bigger than his political party \u2013 the Workers\u2019 Party (PT) \u2013 and even bigger than Brazil\u2019s left. He represents the Brazilian people \u2013 the people who are now struggling to maintain their homes in the favelas and in the encampments and in the settlements, struggling to hold onto the Amazon, struggling to study and heal, eat, and smile.<\/p>\n

It must be chilling for the far-right president Jair Bolsonaro<\/a> to watch the television and see Lula walk confidently out of his prison and into the political domain. Elections have brought the left back to power in Argentina, with the left retaining power in Bolivia<\/a>. Even in Colombia, the left has made significant gains. Mass protests in Chile and Ecuador suggest the tide has turned in those two countries. Bolsonaro must know that the turn to the left in Brazil is imminent. The left now has its champion out on the streets.<\/p>\n

________________________________________________<\/p>\n

Ana Paula Vargas and Vijay Prashad write for Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Edition: Aline Sc\u00e1tola<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 brasildefato.com.br<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

9 Nov 2019 – Just before 6 p.m. on 8 Nov, Brazil\u2019s former President Luiz In\u00e1cio Lula da Silva walked out of prison. Lula was imprisoned in April 2018 on a 12-year sentence. 580 days of prison are now over, as the Federal Supreme Court ruled that inmates who have not yet exhausted their appeals should not be held behind bars. –The Verdict Was Not Directed at Lula, but at the Undemocratic Nature of the Judicial System in Brazil<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":147305,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58,180,53,139],"tags":[547,239,120,550,393,276,267,260,487,378,651,541,1134,234,109,287,985,911,126,172,921],"class_list":["post-147304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-brics","category-latin-america-and-the-caribbean","category-justice","tag-brazil","tag-brics","tag-conflict","tag-corruption","tag-coup","tag-democracy","tag-geopolitics","tag-history","tag-human-rights","tag-journalism","tag-justice","tag-latin-america-caribbean","tag-lula-da-silva","tag-media","tag-politics","tag-power","tag-social-justice","tag-surveillance","tag-violence","tag-west","tag-whistleblowing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=147304"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147304\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/147305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=147304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=147304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=147304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}