Lots to update on Brazil today, but right now the house of Anderson Torres is currently being raided by the federal police.

So let's talk about why this is significant.

🧵 Torres was Bolsonaro's right hand man and his Minister of Justice.

After Bolsonaro lost the presidential election late last year, Torres got a new high profile job.

His new job: Head of Security of the capital city, Brasilia.

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Happening right now:

Brazilian president Lula, the president of the supreme court, and governors (or vice gvns) of every single state, including those who supported Bolsonaro, together in the same room, unilaterally condemning the failed coup.

Quite amazing really. lol at Celina Leao, the acting governor of Brasilia, a Bolsonaro supporter, condemning the violence but evading all responsibility and saying the government of Brasilia didn't have all the information.

Something that is missing from the international coverage of Sunday’s failed coup attempt in Brazil is the role of the radical Bolsonaro camps. Like, literal camps.

So here’s a thread.

1/🧵 Bolsonaro didn’t accept the result of the elections, and late last year many of his supporters started camping outside key military buildings in Brazil, including the military headquarters in Brasilia.

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While we rightly see yesterday’s coup attempt in Brazil alongside the January 6th insurrection in the US and the global far-right’s commitment to destabilise democracy, it is also vital to understand its place in Brazilian history

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1/ That is one of the few remaining copies of the Constituição Federal 1988: Brazil’s first democratic constitution, written after the end of the military dictatorship in 1985.

Yesterday, Bolsonaro's supporters stole it.

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https://twitter.com/rocha_lcr/status/1612225241412952066?s=20&t=QLkZKCPm5AujoEcZ68wCtA

News from Brazil this morning:
- At least 400 people suspected of participating in yesterday's attempted coup have been arrested.

- The governor of Brasília, Ibaneis Rocha, has been suspended for 90 days due to his suspected involvement in the coup. Rocha's suspension comes after suspicion that there was a risk of a coup, but he did reinforce security around the capital city.

Audio has also emerged of him dismissing the coup as 'peaceful protestors' and that 'everything was under control' as congress was being invaded.

Flávio Dino, Brazilian Minister of Justice: 'This is terrorism. This was a coup. ' Dino is also talking about how the military police and other security agencies have been infiltrated by Bolsonaro supporters and the extreme right.

Former Brazilian Minister of Defence making the point that the military and the military police overwhelmingly support Bolsonaro so there must be an investigation on how many of today's protesters are themselves in the police and the military. He is also outright calling out 'forces from the United States ' for directly helping coordinate the attempted coup today.

He is talking about Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and their ilk.

Translation:
'Dilma was impeached (due to political motivations).
Lula was arrested (in a biased prosecution).

Never have they or any others done anything near to the terrorism Bolsonaro unleashed in Brasília today.

May today end the false equivalency once and for all'.

https://twitter.com/vandson_lima/status/1612198695876927488

This hit home for me. I'm Brazilian and many in my family said that they didn't know who to vote for as 'both sides were as bad as each other'.

They never, ever were as bad as each other.

One was a fascist, the other wasn't.

“some form of hate filled grievance” Jesus. The words 'white supremacy' were right there.

The language from law enforcement around this is so revealing, and so disturbing.

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https://twitter.com/PA/status/1587473688693194752

The euphemisms around this, the skirting around the subject, are ridiculous and indicative of an institution unable and unwilling to deal with the problem at the heart of the Dover attack: white supremacy.

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What happened in Kent yesterday was a terrorist attack, and yet no one in the media or government is condemning it as such.

🧵 on the Terrorism Act 2000 and how the refusal to condemn the attack, legitimises this kind of violence. The Terrorism Act 2000 establishes three basic criteria for whether or not something should be considered terrorism. The attack in Dover fulfils all three.

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I read this article so you don't have to!
I'm an expert on UK counterterrorism so let's deconstruct it together to see how appalling and dangerous this is.

(It was on the Telegraph and no I'm not linking to it.)

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1/ This is as laughable as it is problematic. How will they define extreme hatred of Britain? They can’t, so this will serve to 1) vilify dissent and 2) continue to target minority communities.

Why are trans rights political fodder in both the US and the UK? Andrea Dworkin had the answers nearly 40 years ago:

🧵 on right-wing extremism and transphobia. Dworkin wrote Right-Wing Women in 1983, to make sense of why so many women follow right-wing movements and beliefs that are inherently misogynistic.

This happens primarily through four mechanisms: Form, shelter, safety, and rules.

So scrapping the Human Rights Act was on the Queen's Speech.

It's simple, theTories hate Human Rights because of the absolute prohibition against torture, and here's why:

🧵 Human Rights legislation exists to curb state power. As such, most governments are hostile to them by default.

Absolute rights in particular are tricky and its one such right, that the Tory gov hates: Article 3, freedom from torture

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Let’s talk about why Prevent is Islamophobic. Firstly, it is important to recognise that it is by design.

Buckle up!

🧵 Did you know that from its inception, Prevent distributed funding according to demographics? Any Local Authority with a Muslim population of at least 5% was automatically given Prevent funding.

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