Jaime Amorim is a member of the Landless Workers’ Movement (MST) and one of the seven activists who are holding a hunger strike since Jul. 31 in Brasília, the capital city of Brazil.
The protest is challenging the imprisonment of former Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva without evidence against him. The hunger strikers demand that the chief justice of the Supreme Court, Cármen Lúcia, place on the docket three petitions called ADCs.
By reviewing these ADCs, the Supreme Court justices will decide whether or not the article in Brazil’s Constitution that establishes that any Brazilian can only be imprisoned after their conviction and sentence is final is in force.
Their demand, therefore, is not only about ex-president Lula, but also about the thousands of Brazilians who have been unfairly incarcerated while they can still appeal their conviction.
Read the message released by striker Jaime Amorim:
“I am Jaime Amorim, I am from the Landless Workers’ Movement (MST) in the state of Pernambuco, and I am part of the group that is holding a hunger strike here in Brasília. I want to address our activists, who gave us this assignment – it was personally a voluntary choice, but also an assignment defined by the organization as whole. We feel very sure about it, very confident about the cause that has led us to start the hunger strike. Of course, our bodies are a bit weak – after all, this is our 24th day fasting. But every day our spirits become more active, our morale rises, our certainty about our cause, about what we are demanding, becomes greater.
We will keep talking about Brazil every day, looking to better understand the consequences of the coup for Brazil and how important it is to defeat it. That is why we become stronger every day. Especially now that we see the cities organizing, people fasting in several states, mobilizing every night, holding demonstrations in different cities. All this makes the hunger strike stronger. Rest assured: we are ready for a long hunger strike, we are going to defeat the coup. Let us bring the hunger strike and people’s struggle to the fore, so that the judicial system and Brazilian political forces withdraw from this process and the Brazilian people awaken, so that we can build a country for all Brazilians.”
