Curitiba, Paraná, Brazil 4/12/2018 – 10 PM
- During a protest at the Democratic Vigil #LulaLivre camp on the evening of April 12, PT President, Senator Gleisi Hoffman announced that a multi-party front (PT, PcdoB, PSOL, PDT and PSB) will be launched against Lula’s imprisonment. The senator spent the afternoon at the camp. She visited local residents who are supporting the movement and letting people use their bathrooms, water and electricity. She visited tents, had coffee in the camp kitchen and spoke with the people, who made a point of asking her about President Lula’s well being, thanked her for her commitment to the struggle and impressed her with their strength and resilience.
- Lula received a visit from his family today. His children and grandson said that he has been sleeping well and is calm, despite the injustice that has been committed. Lula told them that every morning he is moved when he hears the good morning yells that echo from the camp. The ex-President also said that he loves reading the letters that he is receiving, at the rate of hundreds per day.
- Comrades from the left in Paris, London and Lisbon visited the camp this afternoon. In Spain, the only legitimate president of Brazil until December 31, 2018, Dilma Rousseff, denounced Lula’s political imprisonment at a conference in Barcelona and, for the second day in a row, received a standing ovation. In Buenos Aires, Manuela D´Avila (PcdoB) represented the Brazilian progressive forces in a large political protest in which ex-President and current Senator Cristina Kirchner participated, along with parliamentarians, mayors and political leaders and activists from all of the currents of the Argentine left. In Lisbon, Portugal, Guilherme Boulos (PSOL) denounced the execution of Marielle Franco, the imprisonment without proof of Lula and the attacks against Brazilian democracy.
- At the camp in Curitiba, the tent set up to register new members of the PT party overflowed with people and ran out of registration forms. On its first day of operation, 100 people affiliated with the party, to the profound disgust of the Brazilian right.
- A working library is now operating in the camp, with a tent set up to receive book donations. Inspired by the teachings of Paulo Freire, our militants know that “the reading of the World proceeds the reading of the word”, and that “reading has to be an act of love,” so that the daily struggle is also made with tenderness.
- In addition to Curitiba and Brasilia, yesterday the comrades from Via Campesina in Ceará (MST and MAB) set up a permanent camp against Lula’s imprisonment in Fortaleza. The space of resistance was set up on Murilo Borges square, in front of the Federal Justice Ministry building in the state capital. It was the first act of the “Lula Livre Ceará: we are the resistance!” camp and 10,000 people participated in action.
Bulletin 16 – People’s Committee in Defense of Lula and Democracy
Curitiba 4/12/2018 – 10 PM
Foto: Ricardo Stuckert
