University Of São Paulo Highlights The Need For Constant Defense Of Democracy

Summoned as a response to the terrorist acts on Sunday (8) at the headquarters of the three Powers in Brasília, an act in defense of democracy took place at the Faculty of Law (FD) of USP this Monday, January 9, at 12 noon, in Largo São Francisco, in downtown São Paulo. The call, which spread rapidly across social networks since Sunday night, brought USP leaders, professors, students, jurists, representatives of the student movement and other civil society organizations to the Salão Nobre, as well as personalities from politics and society. media. The act was broadcast on the FD Channel on YouTube, and is available at this link .

“I come here to alert our nation so that we do not neglect the constant defense of the Democratic State of Law, which is the only environment in which modern life is viable and prosperous”, began the rector of USP, Carlos Gilberto Carlotti Junior, at the opening of the event. After noting that he also represented the other two state universities in São Paulo, Unesp and Unicamp, he emphasized the need to defend democracy and expressed the university community’s repudiation of the acts of terrorism that were seen in the country’s federal capital. (Click here to read the full speech.)

Carlotti stated that the act also represented a requirement that those responsible for the crimes that destroyed the image and physical installations of the Powers of the Republic be punished in accordance with the law. “It is in the law that the democratic structure of a free country is embodied. We cannot, under any circumstances, allow impunity to prevail”, he emphasized. “There is not, nor will there be, amnesty. The terrorists who shattered Brasilia are not and will never be up to the word amnesty. We must support the initiatives of the Federal Supreme Court so that similar actions are not repeated.”


To the USP Journal, the vice-rector Maria Arminda do Nascimento Arruda, who was also present at the event, stated that USP goes public still under the strong impact of the images of terror from the previous day, to “express its most vehement repudiation of attempts to forcefully impose the state of exception, which restricts freedoms, demeans human rights and reveals a dark horizon for the Brazilian nation. It is not allowed for us to omit at this very serious moment in our society. The history of our institution is guided by the enlightened defense of the superior condition of democracy as a civilizational formation that, it is never idle to assure, supports the production of knowledge, science, culture, which defines the superior mission of the University. These acts of obvious barbarism are at variance with the ethical ordering of university life and violate the laws in force in the country. We cannot forget the dictatorial regime that claimed lives and tortured many of ours; fundamental will be to investigate and investigate rigorously and punish all those involved, whether the mentors or the executors of these actions that shamefully expose us on the world stage. Complacency will be the seedbed of new attacks and the application of the rigor of the law the necessary and sovereign guarantee of democratic normality”.

Celso Fernandes Campilongo, director of the FD, mentioned that January 8 was marked by crime and spoke of the importance of the constitutional order and institutions for a civilized and democratic society. He also recalled the event in defense of democracy that took place in Largo São Francisco on August 11 last year. “Today has a tonic of the reinvigoration of democracy, of which we should pay a lot of attention in the coming years with the cultivation of democracy”, he spoke. “A democracy, if it is not well taken care of, with all the attention and with all the affection, can turn its people into enslaved people and the denial of democracy”, he said, demanding the punishment of those involved in the coup acts.

Representing the Brazilian Bar Association (OAB) in São Paulo, Patricia Vanzolini was emphatic in calling the events in Brasília a coup. “It is important that the entire legal community speak in unison that it is a coup, and it is a crime, not freedom,” she said. A denomination that did not have the consensus of everyone in the area, recounts Patricia, but that “what we saw yesterday proves right those who always feared that we would undergo a coup attempt”.

Patricia says that firm measures must be taken in intense situations, such as the current one, and recalls that the Federal Supreme Court (STF) received a lot of criticism for applying measures considered to be very violent, or illegal, but that, “looking back, now, we were able to see that if that was what he wanted to prevent, these measures were necessary”. She also highlights that the STF has been the true guardian of our democratic freedom. And she concludes: “What we saw yesterday is not an attack on the Democratic Rule of Law, that immaterial entity, but an attack on the Brazilian people, and we are here to defend it”.


“Fascists will not pass”
Despite the quick call, the Salão Nobre da Sanfran, stage for historical moments of the faculty in its traditional struggle for freedom, was packed with a varied audience of about a thousand people, including members of the USP community, law professionals and school students.

It was a generous audience in applause for the speeches, which became enthusiastic when shouting, loud and clear, several times, the expression “without amnesty”, and the classic expression of Dolores Ibárruri, called La Passionaria , in the Spanish revolution, against the fascists by Franco: “They will not pass”, sung in an enthusiastic and repeated chorus.

The demonstration of last August 11th, called by the faculty with the support of USP in defense of holding the elections, when Bolsonarism preached the opposite, permeated almost all the speeches – as if it had been a premonitory meeting of the problems that were to come, even after the election won by Lula.

From the courtyard of the Faculty of Law, a unison cry echoes in defense of democracy , was the headline ofJornal da USPin its coverage of that meeting. This is how the report began: “Thousands of people crowded the school premises, in Largo São Francisco, to hear the reading of two new letters: the manifestoIn Defense of Democracy and Justice, signed by 107 entities of the most varied political, economic and social groups — including from the elite of the national business community to trade union centrals, universities, scientific, environmental and human rights organizations —, and theLetter to Brazilian Women and Men in Defense of the Democratic State of Law!, written by a group of professors and former law students at USP, which, on the night of the 11th itself, surpassed the mark of 1 million signatures”.

The student movement was present at the act for democracy on January 9th. In her speech, Manuela Morais, president of the Academic Center XI de Agosto in Largo São Francisco, drew attention to the importance of unity against the attack on Brazilian democracy “by a fascist political project, which acted with the connivance of authorities” . “We know that, historically, peaceful demonstrations by students and social movements have been violently repressed by the State”, she recalls. “Justice must not fail us this time.”

Manuela also demands that the financiers of this movement, who maintained the terrorist camps in Brasília and in other parts of the country, be held accountable. “It is through permanent social mobilization that we conquer rights and avoid setbacks. Today, the voice of the Brazilian people says: ‘No amnesty’”, she concluded.

Davi Barbosa Bonfim, from the Free Central Directory of Students (DCE) at USP, the body that represents all students at the University, recalled the students who fought for democracy when the military dictatorship was installed in the country and how the student movement, allied to the movement of workers, continued to resist the Bolsonaro government’s project. “The project of Bolsonarism was and continues to be the destruction of the Powers and the annihilation of those who think differently and who fight against the extreme right”, he said.

In addition, Bonfim reinforced the need not to grant amnesty to the coup leaders who destroyed the buildings of the Three Powers. The student movement remains active, and “it has never shied away from the task of being number one in facing those who attack democracy and now, again, we will be the front line to be able to confront those who want to attack the Brazilian people”, he said.

Also participating were Marcos Kauê, director of the National Union of Students (UNE), and Amanda Harumy, director of the National Association of Graduate Students (ANPG).

broad support
The event at Largo São Francisco also featured speeches by the São Paulo Attorney General, Mário Sarrubbo, who also represented the State Public Ministry (MPE); the São Paulo state police ombudsman, Claudio Silva; the former state attorney, Oscar Vilhena; the representative of the Trade Union Centers Ricardo Patah; and the former Minister of Justice, José Carlos Dias. Among the personalities, Father Júlio Lancellotti, former player Walter Casagrande, councilor Eduardo Suplicy, among other names, were present.

In front of a crowded auditorium, the dean of USP demanded that everyone remain calm, believing in the institutions, but that they be attentive to events. “ These predators will not pass. Our democracy will emerge victorious once more,” he concluded.