Huge crowds across Brazil call for no amnesty for Bolsonaro

Tens of thousands of Brazilians have taken to the streets to demand no amnesty be granted to the former president Jair Bolsonaro after he was convicted of plotting a coup.

- Tom Phillips

The far-right populist was sentenced to 27 years in prison earlier this month for illegally attempting to cling to power after he lost the 2022 presidential election to his leftwing opponent, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

On Sunday, huge crowds packed the squares and beaches of some of Brazil’s biggest cities to voice their opposition to rightwing efforts to help Bolsonaro escape jail for his failed power grab, which included a plan to assassinate Lula, the vice-president, Geraldo Alckmin, and a supreme court judge.

The pro-democracy protests were spearheaded by some of Brazil’s best-loved musicians, including a trio of legendary songwriters who were at the forefront of the fight against the country’s brutal 1964-85 military dictatorship: Caetano Veloso, Chico Buarque and Gilberto Gil.

"The Brazilian people elected Lula and that’s why democracy in Brazil endures," Veloso, 83, told tens of thousands of demonstrators who had braved 35C temperatures to pack Rio’s Copacabana beach.