Brazil’s ex-president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva received the visit of João Pedro Stedile, from the National Coordination of Brazil’s Landless Workers' Movement (MST), and Rui Falcão, the Workers’ Party former chair. Lula is being held at the Federal Police headquarters in Curitiba since April 7th.
The visitors talked to journalists, reiterating Lula’s determination to run for president in Brazil’s upcoming elections in October and expressing their enthusiasm with the plan. Stedile pointed out that visiting the former president is always an emotional moment.
“Despite the terrible injustice being committed against the [ex-]president, especially these plots from Supreme Court justices, he not only has the will to run for office, but the people wants him to run, and hundreds of lawyers guarantee he can run,” Rui Falcão said.
Both said Lula expressed his concern about the situation of Brazilian children who have been separated from their families in the United States, and that he feels ashamed about it.
Another topic they talked about was concerns about national sovereignty. “Foreign companies are increasingly meddling and manipulating this coup government,” Stedile said. Lula said he is outraged over the dismantling of the country’s economy. “It’s in the numbers. The industrial sector alone dropped 10 percent in June,” the MST leader said.
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Stedile said that it’s the activists role to collect signatures for a petition that will be filed to the Supreme Court chair, justice Carmen Lúcia, calling the country’s top court to rule on a direct action for the declaration of constitutionality, or ADC, that could allow Lula to be released.
The peasant leader calls everyone to join a nationwide mobilization on July 25 to collect signatures. There is also a march being planned on August 15th, when Lula will be registered as a candidate.
