- Bolsonaro faces the trial by SC for alleged plot to hold on to power.
- The politician prohibited social networks during the duration of the procedures.
- The house arrest of the United States promises to hold everyone.
A Brazilian judge placed former President Jair Bolsonaro under house arrest for breaking a prohibition of social networks, increasing a dramatic confrontation between the court and the politician, accused of planning a coup d’etat.
Bolsonaro is in trial in the Supreme Court for allegedly conspiring to hold on to power after losing 2022 elections before President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
President Donald Trump has tried to punish Brazil, a former ally of the United States, so he sees as a “witch -politically motivated” witch hunt “addressed to Bolsonaro by imposing striking rates on the largest economy in Latin America.
Bolsonaro, 70, is prohibited on social networks during the duration of the process, already third parties are forbidden to share their public comments.
But on Sunday, his allies challenged the order by sharing images online of a call between the former army captain and his eldest son Flavio in a solidarity demonstration in Rio de Janeiro.
The judge of the Supreme Court, Alexandre de Moraes, reacted furiously, stating that the Judiciary would not allow a defendant to “treat him as a fool” due to his “political and economic power.”
Criticizing the “repeated ruling” of Bolsonaro of complying with the court restrictions on him during the trial, he placed him under house arrest at his home in the capital of Brasilia.
He also prohibited the former leader of the country (2019-2022) to receive visitors, apart from his lawyers and use mobile phones, and warned that any new transgression would lead to his arrest.
Several mobile phones were seized at home on Monday, police said.
Washington condemned the new restrictions on Monday night, with the Office of Affairs of the Western Hemisphere of the State Department issuing a statement in X.
“Minister Alexandre de Moraes, already sanctioned by the United States for human rights violations, continues to use Brazilian institutions to silence the opposition and threaten democracy,” the office published. “Let Bolsonaro speak!”
American officials added that “they would hold all those who collaborate or facilitate sanctioned conduct.”
The United States post was shared again by Bolsonaro’s political son, Eduardo Bolsonaro, who had successfully pressed Washington to take punitive measures against Brazil on the case.
In a separate publication, he wrote: “Brazil is no longer a democracy.”
He called Moraes, who presides over Bolsonaro’s trial and has designed himself a defender of Brazilian democracy against the extreme right, a “out of control psychopath.”
Last month, Moraes ordered Bolsonaro to use an ankle bracelet and instituted the prohibition of social networks.
Trump responded in an unprecedented way by prohibiting the defaults of the United States and freezing their assets in US banks.
Trump pressure campaign
Trump’s pressure campaign has angered many Brazilians, but attracted him to Bolsonaro’s conservative base.
In Rallies in Rio, Brasilia and Sao Paulo on Sunday, some protesters stirred US flags. Uu. Or kept signs reading “Thank you Trump”.
Bolsonaro himself did not attend the demonstrations, since the Supreme Court ordered that he stay at home at night and on weekends throughout the trial.
Prosecutors say that he and seven coacked tried to cancel their electoral defeat of 2022 in a plot that only failed because the military did not join.
He faces a 40 -year judgment if he is convicted in the trial, which is expected to end in the coming weeks.
Bolsonaro’s supporters broke into the Brazilian Congress in January 2023, after Lula was inaugurated, looting the cameras and attacking the police, in scenes that remember an attack by Trump’s supporters in the United States Capitol two years before.
Although they are prohibited from running, Bolsonaro hopes to set up a return to Trump’s style in the 2026 presidential elections in Brazil.
Lula, 79, has said that he can look for a fourth term, allowed health.
Last year, he was hospitalized by a cerebral hemorrhage caused by a bath fall.
