Supporters of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro began flooding Sao Paulo’s main boulevard for an Independence Day rally on Saturday, buoyed by the government’s blockade of tech billionaire Elon Musk’s X platform, a ban they say is evidence of their political persecution.
A few thousand protesters, dressed in the yellow-green colors of the Brazilian flag, poured onto Av. Paulista. References to the ban on X and images of Musk were abundant.
“Thank you for defending our freedom,” read a banner praising the tech entrepreneur.
Saturday’s march is a test of Bolsonaro’s ability to mobilize turnout for October’s municipal elections, even though Brazil’s electoral court has barred him from running until 2030. It is also a kind of referendum on X, whose suspension has raised eyebrows even among some of Bolsonaro’s opponents, while fanning the flames of Brazil’s deep-seated political polarization.
“A country without freedom cannot celebrate this day,” Bolsonaro wrote on his Instagram account on September 4, urging Brazilians to stay away from official Independence Day parades and join him in Sao Paulo instead.
Chief Justice Alexandre de Moraes ordered X’s nationwide ban on August 30 after months of feuding with Musk over the limits of freedom of expression. The powerful judge has led efforts to ban far-right users from spreading misinformation on social media, and he stepped up his efforts after die-hard Bolsonaro supporters ransacked Congress and the presidential palace on January 8, 2023, in an attempt to overturn Bolsonaro’s presidential election defeat.
The ban is red meat for Bolsonaro’s allies, who have accused the judiciary and the government of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of conspiring to silence their movement.
“Elon Musk has been a fighter for freedom of expression,” Bolsonaro’s longtime ally and lawmaker Bia Kicis said in an interview. “The right is being suppressed, slaughtered, because the left doesn’t want the right to exist.
Our freedoms are in danger, we must make our voices heard. De Moraes is a tyrant, he should be removed, and people on the streets are the only thing that can convince politicians to do so,” added pensioner Amaro Santos as he walked along the main road on Saturday.
Musk, a self-described “freedom of speech absolutist,” also called on Brazilians to turn out en masse for the protest, sharing a post from someone else in which he claimed that X’s ban had awakened people “to the fact that freedom is not free and must be fought for.” He also created an X account, named after the controversial jurist, to post sealed court orders ordering X to shut down accounts deemed illegitimate.
But de Moraes’ decision to ban X was far from arbitrary, as it was supported by fellow Supreme Court justices. And while speech, online and elsewhere, is more easily censored under Brazilian law than in the U.S., Musk has become both a cause célèbre and a spokesman for unfettered freedom of expression.
Since 2019, X has shut down 226 accounts of far-right activity accused of undermining Brazilian democracy, including those of lawmakers affiliated with Bolsonaro’s party, according to court records.
But when the company refused to take action on some accounts, de Moraes warned last month that his legal representative could be arrested, prompting X to dissolve its local office. The U.S.-based company refused to appoint a new representative — as is required to receive court notices — and de Moraes ordered a nationwide suspension until it did so.
A Supreme Court panel unanimously upheld De Moraes’ decision to block X days later, undermining Musk’s efforts to portray him as an authoritarian bent on censoring political speech.
Het meest controversiële onderdeel van zijn uitspraak was de oplegging van een enorme boete van $ 9.000 per dag aan gewone Brazilianen die virtuele privénetwerken (VPN’s) gebruikten om toegang te krijgen tot X
“Some of these measures that the Supreme Court has passed seem quite burdensome and abusive,” said Andrei Roman, CEO of Brazil-based pollster Atlas Intel.
In the run-up to Saturday’s protest, some right-wing politicians ignored De Moraes’ ban and brazenly used a VPN to publish messages on X urging people to join the protests.
The march in Sao Paulo is being held in parallel with official events celebrating Brazil’s independence from Portugal. Commemorations have been fraught with tension in recent years, as Bolsonaro used them while he was still in power to mobilize supporters and show political strength.
Three years ago, he threatened to plunge the country into a constitutional crisis when he declared he would no longer abide by De Moraes’s rulings. He has since toned down his attacks — a reflection of his own delicate legal situation.
Bolsonaro has been indicted twice since his term expired in 2022, most recently for alleged money laundering related to undeclared diamonds from Saudi Arabia. De Moraes is overseeing an investigation into the Jan. 8 riots, including whether Bolsonaro played a role in inciting them.