International
Brazil seeks arrest of Bolsonaro ally over Brasilia riots
January 11 | By AFP | Florian Plaucheur with Louis Genot in Rio de Janeiro |
Brazilian authorities seeking to punish the mob that stormed the halls of power in Brasilia issued arrest warrants Tuesday for two former senior officials, one of them a close ally of far right ex-president Jair Bolsonaro.
One of them is Anderson Torres, who used to be Bolsonaro’s justice minister and lately served as security chief in the capital.
He was fired after Sunday’s stunning violence, which was reminiscent of the January 6, 2021 insurrection in Washington, and brought global condemnation.
Anderson’s failure to act as thousands of Bolsonaro supporters overran congress, the presidential palace and the supreme court is “potentially criminal,” judge Alexandre Moraes of the Supreme Court said.
He also issued an arrest warrant for Fabio Augusto, who led the military police in Brasilia and was also removed from his job after Sunday’s mob violence. News reports said he is already in custody.
“Brazilian democracy will not be struck, much less destroyed, by terrorist criminals,” the judge wrote in his decision.
Torres was on vacation in the United States on Sunday as the mob ran amok. On Tuesday he denied any complicity in the events and said he will return to Brazil and defend himself.
Bolsonaro has also been in the United States since the end of December, skipping the inauguration of successor Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
On Tuesday, Bolsonaro left the Florida hospital where he had been receiving treatment for intestinal problems stemming from a stabbing in 2018.
Most detainees released
The security forces in Brasilia have come under stinging attack over how they responded initially to the riot. Video posted on social media showed some of them filming the violence rather than intervening to halt it.
Justice Minister Flavio Dino said around 50 arrest warrants had been issued for people not caught in the act of pillaging and for others not present but accused of organizing the attack.
Police have arrested more than 1,500 people so far but said on Tuesday that “599 people were released, mostly old people, people with health problems, the homeless and mothers with children” on humanitarian grounds.
Most of the arrests took place on Monday as police cleared protest camps set up in the capital.
Lula had condemned “terrorist acts and criminal, coup-mongering vandalism” when he returned to work at the pillaged presidential palace on Monday.
But on Tuesday he said “Brazilian democracy remains firm,” in a post on Twitter.
“Let’s recover the country from hatred and disunity,” added the 77-year-old former trade unionist, who took office on January 1 for his third term as president after defeating Bolsonaro in the deeply divisive election.
Police said 527 people remain detained while others were being processed.
Those that were released were taken on buses to a bus station from where they would be able to return to their home regions.
From one of the buses, passengers shouted: “Victory is ours!” Some people put their arms outside the vehicles with clenched fists — a symbol of resistance — or making the “V” victory sign.
Other detainees were taken to police stations to then be transferred to the Papuda prison complex, an AFP reporter said.
‘Humiliation’
“Now we’re going to rest and prepare ourselves for another battle because if they think they will intimidate us, they are very wrong,” Agostinho Ribeiro, a freed Bolsonaro supporter, told AFP.
He said the detainees’ treatment at a police gymnasium where they were held had been humiliating and compared it to a Nazi concentration camp, while blaming the rioting on left-wing “infiltrators.”
Hundreds of soldiers and police mobilized to dismantle an improvised camp outside the army’s headquarters in Brasilia on Monday.
There, some 3,000 Bolsonaro supporters had set up tents — used as a base for the sea of protesters who ran riot for around four hours on Sunday.
Bolsonaro has alleged his electoral defeat was due to a conspiracy against him by Brazil’s courts and electoral authorities.
Lula, who previously led Brazil from 2003 to 2010, met with the leaders of both houses of Congress and the chief justice of the Supreme Court on Monday.
International
María Corina Machado: “Venezuela is closer than ever to regaining freedom”
Venezuelan opposition leader and 2025 Nobel Peace Prize laureate María Corina Machado declared on Friday that Venezuela is facing “the most decisive moment in its contemporary history” and that the country is “closer than ever to regaining freedom and democracy.”
Her remarks were delivered via video message during the 81st General Assembly of the Inter American Press Association (IAPA), held in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic.
Machado emphasized that the situation in Venezuela remains “extremely serious” due to censorship and repression imposed by Nicolás Maduro’s regime, particularly in a global context where “society is built on information.”
She warned that authoritarian governments manipulate public opinion through “psychological warfare” and disinformation, while shutting down media outlets and persecuting journalists.
“The only way to topple these regimes is through the constant, relentless, and unrestricted preaching of the truth. It is absolutely true that the truth will set us free,” she stated.
International
Millions to join “No Kings” march in U.S. amid Trump’s growing authoritarian backlash
Millions of Americans are set to take to the streets this Saturday in more than 2,500 cities across the United States for the second edition of the “No Kings” march, a massive protest organized by progressive groups and activists against what they describe as the authoritarian direction of President Donald Trump’s second administration.
The demonstration, expected to be the largest since Trump’s return to power, comes amid a federal government shutdown, further heightening political tensions in Washington.
From the White House, press secretary Abigail Jackson dismissed the event with a brief “Who cares?”, while senior Republican leaders labeled the march as an act of “hate against America.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson accused Democrats of blocking negotiations to reopen the government and claimed they were “unable to stand up to their raging base.” He also linked the protests to “supporters of Hamas and the Antifa terrorist group.”
President Donald Trump, in an interview with Fox News, blamed Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer for the legislative deadlock.
“He’s got nothing else left to do. Everyone’s hitting him hard,” Trump said.
The organizers — a coalition of Democratic leaders and more than 200 civil society and labor groups — argue that the Republican refusal to reopen the government is a clear symptom of the authoritarianism they seek to denounce.
The main rally will take place in Washington, D.C., which has been under heightened National Guard surveillance for weeks, officially to control rising crime. However, organizers contend the deployment is aimed at intimidating and silencing dissent.
Protesters have been urged to wear yellow, a reference to the 2019 pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong.
“With this color, we align ourselves with a historical context and remind the world that power must come from the people, not from crowns,” organizers stated on their website.
In addition to the capital, large marches are scheduled in New York, San Francisco, Boston, Atlanta, Chicago, Kansas City, and Honolulu, as well as abroad in London, Paris, Frankfurt, and several Spanish cities — Madrid (Puerta del Sol), Barcelona (Plaça Sant Jaume), Seville (Plaza Nueva), and Málaga (Plaza de la Marina).
During the first edition, held in June, the movement gathered around five million people, a figure organizers expect to surpass this weekend.
International
Petro expresses concern over fatal shooting during mass protests in Lima
Colombian President Gustavo Petro voiced his “concern” on Thursday over recent events in Peru, following the death of a protester reportedly shot during a massive demonstration in Lima against the government and Congress.
“I must express my concern over the events in Peru. A young artist has been killed in citizens’ protests,” Petro wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
The Colombian leader also noted that in Peru, “a popularly elected president remains imprisoned without conviction,” referring to Pedro Castillo, who led the country from July 2021 to December 2022 until he was removed by Congress following a failed attempted coup.
“This is a blatant violation of the American Convention on Human Rights,” Petro stated, adding, “I hope Peru seeks social and political dialogue to legitimize its public institutions.”
On Wednesday, Peru experienced widespread protests in several cities, with the largest demonstration in Lima in recent years, driven by citizens’ concerns over corruption and public insecurity.
During the capital’s mobilization, the Ombudsman’s Office confirmed the death of Eduardo Ruiz, 32, and reported clashes that left over 100 injured, including 78 police officers and 24 protesters, as well as ten arrests.
The Attorney General’s Office, investigating Ruiz’s death “in the context of serious human rights violations,” confirmed that the protester was shot.
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