You turn to us for voices you won't hear anywhere else.

Sign up for Democracy Now!'s Daily Digest to get our latest headlines and stories delivered to your inbox every day.

Tens of Thousands Protest Far-Right Brazilian Presidential Candidate Jair Bolsonaro

HeadlineOct 01, 2018

In Brazil, tens of thousands of people took part in women-led rallies in Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo and other cities on Saturday to protest against the far-right presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro ahead of the October 7 Brazilian election. Bolsonaro is currently leading many polls even though he was forced to stop campaigning after being stabbed last month. Bolsonaro is a former Army officer who has openly praised Brazil’s military dictatorship, which lasted from 1964 to 1985. He has said he used his government housing allowance to pay sex workers, called women weak, threatened gay people with violence and called a political opponent “too ugly to rape.” The theme of Saturday’s protest was “Not Him.”

Protester: “I’m here because Bolsonaro is dangerous. He represents hatred for our country, because he represents the loss of the few rights that the people he targets, such as the black people, the indigenous people and the LGBT community and women, have conquered so far. He represents a threat to democracy in our country, a democracy that we are still building.”

The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.

Non-commercial news needs your support

We rely on contributions from our viewers and listeners to do our work.
Please do your part today.
Make a donation
Top