{"id":22753,"date":"2023-04-25T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-04-25T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/brazils-lula-triggers-protests\/"},"modified":"2023-04-25T12:06:52","modified_gmt":"2023-04-25T12:06:52","slug":"brazils-lula-triggers-protests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/brazils-lula-triggers-protests\/","title":{"rendered":"Brazil’s Lula triggers protests and passions in Portugal"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Catarina Demony and Miguel Pereira<\/p>\n

LISBON (Reuters) – Opponents of Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva condemned his visit on Tuesday to Portugal’s parliament as hypocritical while a rival group of supporters hailed him as the saviour of their nation.<\/p>\n

On his first visit to Europe since taking office as president, the leftist leader was attending Portugal’s annual commemoration of the 1974 “Carnation” revolution which toppled dictator Antonio de Oliveira Salazar.<\/p>\n

At a protest organised by far-right party Chega, people <\/p>\n

shouted “Lula’s place is in prison” in allusion to his 2018 jailing for bribery. <\/p>\n

The conviction was overturned in 2021 and Lula then defeated right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro in an election last year. <\/p>\n

“I see (his visit) as a scandal,” said Tania Jimenez, a 61-year-old who moved to Portugal, home to around 300,000 Brazilians, in December. “He’s an international thief.”<\/p>\n

As Lula spoke in parliament, Chega lawmakers thumped their desks and held signs saying: “Enough of corruption”. Three of them brought Ukrainian flags after Lula angered many for suggesting both Ukraine and Russia were to blame for the war.<\/p>\n

“Brazil’s democracy has recently experienced moments of great threat… they tried to set our clock back by 50 years,” Lula told parliament. “The news I bring you is that Brazilian democracy has demonstrated its solidity and resilience.”<\/p>\n

Dancing and holding carnations, Lula supporters erupted in jubilation when he arrived at parliament, shouting: “Fascism never again!”.<\/p>\n

“Today I cry when I hear the (Brazilian) national anthem, with emotion because I see that my Brazil is coming back,” said 39-year-old Daniela Albuquerque, who moved to Portugal five years ago in search of a better life for her daughters.<\/p>\n

\n

(Reporting by Catarina Demony, Miguel Pereira and Rodrigo Antunes; Editing by Charlie Devereux and Andrew Cawthorne)<\/p>\n

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By Catarina Demony and Miguel Pereira LISBON (Reuters) – Opponents of Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva condemned his visit on Tuesday to Portugal’s parliament as hypocritical while a rival group of supporters hailed him as the saviour of their nation. On his first visit to Europe since taking office as president, the leftist […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":22754,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1222],"tags":[1223],"class_list":["post-22753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-u-s-world-news","tag-updated"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportWorldNews\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ3O0G6-VIEWIMAGE.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22753","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22753"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22753\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22768,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22753\/revisions\/22768"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}