This presidential pardon granted to a deputy close to the head of state provoked an outcry, the opposition shouting at the “institutional rupture”.
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A new showdown with the judiciary. Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro pardoned, Thursday, April 21, theone of his relatives, a deputy sentenced the day before to prison by the Supreme Court for anti-democratic remarks. This act caused an outcry, with the opposition shouting at the “institutional breakdown”. The Rede party (center left) on Friday presented an appeal to the Supreme Court demanding the annulment of this decree.
Thursday evening, in his weekly live on Facebook, the far-right president explained that he had granted his pardon “in the name of freedom of expression, an essential pillar of our society”. Former police officer, Daniel Silveira, 39, was arrested in February 2021 after posting a video full of insults against the judges of the Supreme Court, to whom he particularly wished to be “beaten in the street”.
In this same video, he had also praised the military dictatorship (1964-1985), of which President Bolsonaro is also a fervent admirer, declaring that the magistrates of the highest court of the country “do not serve[ai]come to nothing” and “should be deposed”. In March, Daniel Silveira had barricaded himself in his office in Parliament. He had even slept there to try to escape the installation of an electronic bracelet, before resolving to accept this measure imposed by the Supreme Court pending its judgment.