A Brazilian lawmaker allied with President Jair Bolsonaro barricaded himself inside Congress Tuesday night to fight a Supreme Court judge’s order for him to be fitted with an ankle monitor.
Far-right Congressman Daniel Silveira, an ex-policeman serving his first term in Brazil’s lower house, camped out in his office in Brasilia in defiance of the court order from Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who found the lawmaker violated his bail by continuing to take part in a movement calling for the Supreme Court to be overthrown.
Silveira, 39, has been a leading figure in protests and online activism by hardline Bolsonaro supporters, who accuse the Supreme Court of blocking the president’s agenda and want to see it dissolved.
“This chamber is inviolable. A congressman is sovereign in the chamber,” Silveira told the media, which broadcast images of him carrying a small mattress to sleep in his office.
“I want to see if (Moraes) is ready to double down on his bet,” he added, accusing the judge of “censorship.”
Silveira was arrested in February 2021 for allegedly plotting “acts aimed at harming (the Supreme Court) and the democratic rule of law.”
He was released in November on condition he refrain from communicating with other leaders of the movement and stay off social networks.
But prosecutors told the high court he had continued participating in anti-democratic events.
Lawmakers from Brazil’s powerful Evangelical Christian coalition held a prayer vigil Wednesday in the Congress building for Silveira, who like Bolsonaro is a self-declared admirer of Brazil’s 1964-1985 military dictatorship.
The new ruling bars Silveira from public events and orders him to remain in Rio de Janeiro, where he lives, except for official duties in Brasilia.
Bolsonaro said in December it “hurt (his) heart” to see Silveira jailed, citing his case as an example of overreach by the Supreme Court, with which he has often clashed.
