In January, there are countless activities in solidarity with Lula and Brazil abroad. At the moment, activities are scheduled in Frankfurt, Berlin, Cologne, Munich, Zurich, Paris, London, Barcelona, Stockholm, Madrid, New York, Mexico City and Copenhagen. The program is at the website Brasileiros no Mundo Contra o Golpe (Brazilians around the world against the coup).
This kind of initiative was inaugurated during the struggle against the impeachment of President Dilma in 2015 and 2016, when many Brazilian residents abroad mobilized in the struggle against what we now call the first phase of the coup. These activities are organized by militants pro-democracy, many of them PT’s members, and who also count on the active participation of people who are not PT’s members, but who identify themselves with a political project committed with social inclusion, democracy and sovereignty. Of course, the militancy of PT’s members living abroad -many of them organized locally- has been of the greatest relevance.
Along with this, we have received a very strong solidarity from political parties and progressive and leftist leaders from all around the world, who are engaged in this January journey in defense of President Lula and his right to run for the presidency in this year’s elections.
For this purpose, we will organize many actions. Last Friday 12, we published a support manual in Portuguese, Spanish and English for Lula’s World Solidarity Day, in line with the “Brasil Popular” Front Campaign “Where’s the evidence against Lula?”, which can be accessed at the webpage created to gather these materials.
There, too, you will find many inputs in various languages about the lawsuit against President Lula, such as the English translation of the book “Comments on the Judgment against Lula,” where hundreds of jurists dissect the committed arbitrariness, as well as subtitled videos of the team responsible for Lula’s defense, in addition to widespread dissemination of the online petition “Election without Lula is Fraud” that can be accessed and signed by clicking here, among others.
As the Brazilian mainstream media is totally partisan, it is fundamental that we can divulge abroad the truth about this political persecution which consists on the legal proceedings against President Lula, and thus to break through the blockade of the Brazilian mainstream media. During the impeachment process, the same type of action abroad was fundamental for unraveling the true face of the impeachment’s parliamentary, judicial, and media coup: the world knows that the so-called “pedaladas fiscais” were just a tattered excuse to remove from the government an honest President, legitimately elected by 54 million people, in order to implement a country project which was defeated in four elections.
International solidarity is one of the most important values for the left around the world. So it was in the struggle against the Latin American dictatorships of sad memory, and so it has been also in the struggle for defense of the sovereignty and democracy and against the conservative restoration that we currently live in Latin America.
Mônica Valente, National Secretary for International Relations