Brazil
Lula Out of Jail!
Lula is greeted at ABC Metalworkers
Union rally in São Bernardo do
Campo, November 9, 2019, the day after his release.
On Friday, November 8, Brazil's popular former
president
Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was released from jail in Curitiba, in the
southern state of Paraná, where he had been imprisoned and
kept
in solitary confinement for the past one year and seven months. His
release followed a 6-5 decision by the Supreme Court the night before
that a person can be imprisoned only after all appeals to higher courts
have been exhausted. Lula is still in the process of appealing the
conviction for which he was imprisoned upon losing his first appeal. No
evidence has ever been produced by Lula's accusers to prove he
committed any crime.
 Meanwhile
damning evidence has come to light about the judge (now Brazilian
President Jair Bolsonaro's Minister of Justice and Public Security) and
the prosecutor colluding to ensure Lula was imprisoned to keep him from
running in, and likely winning, last year's presidential election as
the candidate of the Workers' Party.[1]
News of Lula's release was received with
jubilation by his
many comrades, friends and supporters. A throng of people waited
excitedly at the gate of the prison to greet him as he walked
out. When he appeared, with his fist raised in the air, Lula was
greeted by the crowd, waving red Workers' Party flags and holding
"Free Lula" banners. Lula walked straight to the Free Lula
Vigil, a camp set up from day one outside the Federal Police
Headquarters in Curitiba where he was incarcerated. There he
delivered a speech thanking his defence team, his family and the
many people and organizations that had supported him, mounted
campaigns and fought tirelessly for his release.
"You have no idea how much it means for me to be
here with you
all," Lula told them. "I have spoken to the Brazilian people my
entire life, and I never imagined that one day I would be here
speaking to the men and women who shouted 'good morning, Lula,'
‘good afternoon, Lula,' 'good evening, Lula' for 580 days. It
could be raining, or 40 degrees, or freezing. Every single day
you were the living force of democracy that I needed to resist
the rotten things they did to me and to Brazilian justice," he
said. "I want the Public Ministry and Judge Sergio Moro to know
that they did not imprison a man, they tried to kill an idea, but
ideas don't die, they do not disappear."
Lula said he came out of prison feeling braver
than ever
and ready to fight for the Brazilian people and will not permit
Bolsonaro to hand the country over to foreign powers.
On November 9, he travelled to his hometown of
São Bernardo do Campo, a working class city close to
São
Paulo, where he took part in a rally in front of the ABC Metalworkers
Union, which he led before becoming president and which has always been
his base. He told the sea of supporters who came to celebrate his
release that they were going to have to do a lot of fighting, that
fighting is not something that is on one day then off for three months,
then back on again; it is something that has to be done every day.
Lula's defence team said the legal battle
continues, focused
now on getting his convictions nullified.
Note
1. Six
Holes
in
the
Lawfare
Conviction of Lula, Brien Mier, TML Weekly, February
9,
2019.
This article was published in
Volume 49 Number 26 - November 10, 2019
Article Link:
Brazil: Lula Out of Jail!
Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca
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