Dressed in white, groups of relatives of the prisoners arrived at the Papuda prison, on the outskirts of Brasilia, with the face of anyone who wants to denounce a flagrant violation of justice. But it was impossible to talk to them. "You have bad luck; they (the Bolsonaristas) have called a demonstration and we have had to close the access," explained the head of the police group that was guarding the highway.
At the intersection, a man wearing a yellow-green T-shirt waited to see his relative in jail. "I was there on the 8th, I sold flags and T-shirts to the protesters; it's true that they shouldn't have broken things, but there are good people there in that jail."
942 Bolsonaristas remain in Papuda. They are the small fish of the assault on the institutions of democratic power on January 8, which some describe as an attempted coup and others do not.
From time to time, videos circulate on the Bolsonaro networks that denounce the ill-treatment in prisons. "They are being tortured, without food and without water," a local Bolsonaro leader from the state of Pará was outraged, in a WhatsApp message. The Brazilian right had never felt so concerned about the fate of the prisoners.
In front of Papuda, it was hard to believe that these jaunty federal policemen could be torturers. But Bolsonarismo wants to turn its prisoners into living martyrs. "The food is a 'quentinha' (a prepared dish of rice, beans, meat and vegetables that is usually prepared for poor people) and at night a piece of bread and chocolate," denounces the wife of a native detainee in a video from Paraná, where Lula spent 580 days in jail. It didn't seem like the worst diet in Brazilian prisons. But then he adds between sobs: "We don't even know if they're alive."
It is not the only example of victimhood in the Bolsonaro community. After the first day of arrests last month, a detainee complained that they had been imprisoned "against our own will" ("it is what usually happens," the judge replied caustically). Other Bolsonaristas in Papuda lamented the absence of Wi-Fi and ice water.
Perhaps pretrial detention will be a good lesson. But it is also true that the sentences of 30 years considered by the implacable judge Alexandre de Moraes seem excessive for those who have committed crimes such as dropping their pants in the presidential palace or ripping symbolic works of art of Brazilian modernism, such as Las Mulatas, by Emiliano Di Cavalcanti.
Another thing is the just punishment for the big shots of the events of January 8. Anderson Torres, the capital's former secretary of public security, not only considers himself responsible for turning a blind eye to the assault but is also accused of probing for a Bolsonaro self-coup, outlined in an incriminating document found in his apartment in Brasilia last month. past. Arrested after returning from Florida - where he coincided with Bolsonaro - Torres is receiving psychiatric treatment in a military prison in Guará, 20 kilometers from the capital. The former head of the military police in the Federal District, Fabio Augusto Vieira, and the head of the military police in the capital, Jorge Eduardo Naime, are imprisoned in other prison units in the capital.
The question that dominates the gatherings is whether the biggest fish of all - former President Bolsonaro - will end up in Papuda as well. There are new reasons to think that it should. According to a senator close to the former president, Bolsonaro did not raise any objections during a meeting in December in which a plan was hatched to remove de Moraes and thus prevent Lula's inauguration.
A self-coup plan of this nature would be grounds for life imprisonment and the extradition of Bolsonaro, who has been in exile in Florida since January 3. But the same senator later modified his testimony and minimized the role of the former president in the coup plot. At the moment, according to the Justice Minister, Flavio Dino, there is no "situation that justifies the extradition request (...) yes, if (Bolsonaro) extends his stay indefinitely, the situation will change." The former president has changed Orlando, where he stayed in January, for an apartment in Doral (Miami) and his son Flavio said that his father does not rule out staying outside of Brazil for the rest of his life .
If in the end Bolsonaro and his associates are tried for coup, the question that will have to be resolved in the trial is whether what happened on January 8 really constitutes an attempted coup with military support. Dino and Lula believe so and cite the absence of the president's protection battalions and the refusal of the military command to vacate the encampment in front of the headquarters in Brasilia. The mainstream media speak without much reservation of an attempted coup.
But military analysts consulted in Brasilia reject this reading of January 8. "We have more than 600 military units in Brazil; in front of many of these the (Bolsonarista) people were camped for two months; every day asking for military intervention," said army reservist Colonel Paulo Filho. "But there is not a single case of a major, captain, lieutenant or colonel who took to the streets with his troops; no soldier appeared on television," he maintains. For Filho, the refusal to vacate the Brasilia barracks on the night of January 8 was for security reasons. "To say that there was a coup attempt for me is a factual error."
