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US Secretary of State Marco Rubio accuses Brazilian Supreme Court justice of creating a ‘persecution, censorship complex’.
Published On 19 Jul 2025
Washington volition restrict question visas for Brazilian judicial officials and their contiguous household members, United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio has announced, implicit what helium called a “political witch-hunt” against erstwhile Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro.
Announcing the determination connected Friday, Rubio accused Brazilian Supreme Federal Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes of creating a sweeping “persecution and censorship complex” that not lone “violates basal rights of Brazilians, but besides extends beyond Brazil’s shores to people Americans”.
“I person truthful ordered visa revocations for Moraes and his allies connected the court, arsenic good arsenic their contiguous household members, effectual immediately,” helium said, without providing further details connected who would beryllium taxable to the measures.
Brazilian paper O Globo besides reported connected Friday, without citing its source, that the US has revoked visas from 7 much justices of Brazil’s Supreme Court. If accurate, the lone Supreme Court judges not impacted would beryllium Bolsonaro-appointed justices Andre Mendonca and Nunes Marques, and Judge Luiz Fux.
The determination by the US comes aft Brazil’s Supreme Court issued search warrants and restraining orders against Bolsonaro connected Friday, banning him from contacting overseas officials amid allegations helium courted US President Donald Trump’s interference successful tribunal cases against him.
Explaining his decision, Moraes accused Bolsonaro – who was president from 2019 to 2023 – of attacking Brazil’s sovereignty by encouraging the interference of the “head of authorities of a overseas nation” successful its courts.
Bolsonaro’s ongoing proceedings relates to charges helium attempted to carry retired a coup and overturn existent President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s predetermination triumph successful January 2023. The coup charges transportation a 12-year sentence, and if convicted connected different counts, Bolsonaro could walk decades down bars.
Bolsonaro is present banned from contacting overseas officials, utilizing societal media oregon approaching embassies. He was besides prohibited from contacting cardinal allies, including his lad Eduardo Bolsonaro, a Brazilian congressman moving to drum up enactment for his begetter successful Washington.
Federal constabulary besides raided Bolsonaro’s location and headquarters, with authorities ordering him to deterioration an ankle show pursuing Moraes’s ruling that determination is simply a “concrete possibility” helium volition effort to fly the country.
Bolsonaro: ‘Trump of the Tropics’
Speaking to the Reuters quality bureau astatine his party’s office connected Friday, Bolsonaro called Moraes a “dictator” and described the tribunal orders arsenic acts of “cowardice”.
“I consciousness ultimate humiliation,” helium said erstwhile asked astir wearing the ankle monitor. “I americium 70 years old. I was president of the republic for 4 years,” helium added.
On Friday afternoon, a five-judge sheet of Supreme Court judges reviewed and upheld Moraes’s decision.
Bolsonaro besides said helium believed the tribunal orders were a absorption to Trump’s disapproval of his trial, successful the latest denotation that Washington’s interventions whitethorn beryllium harming alternatively than helping the erstwhile president.
While Bolsonaro denied helium planned to permission the country, helium besides said helium would conscionable with Trump if his passport, seized by constabulary past year, was returned.
When asked astir Bolsonaro’s latest comments, White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said the erstwhile Brazilian person and his supporters are “under onslaught from a weaponised tribunal system”.
Trump has maintained affable ties with ideological state Bolsonaro – known arsenic the “Trump of the Tropics” – since the US leader’s archetypal word from 2017 to 2021.
On Thursday, Trump shared a missive connected Truth Social helium had sent to Bolsonaro lamenting the embattled erstwhile president’s “terrible treatment” astatine the hands of an “unjust strategy turned against you”.
Earlier this month, Trump besides threatened to enforce a 50 percent tariff connected Brazilian goods starting August 1, arsenic helium called for Lula’s authorities to driblet the charges against Bolsonaro.
Lula promised to reciprocate, saying “any measurement to summation tariffs unilaterally volition beryllium responded to successful airy of Brazil’s Law of Economic Reciprocity”.
In Friday’s tribunal decision, Moraes besides said Trump’s threatened tariffs were an effort to interfere successful the country’s judicial strategy by creating a superior economical situation successful Brazil.
The tariffs – which would wounded cardinal Brazilian sectors similar java farming, cattle ranching and aviation – person rallied nationalist enactment down Lula’s defiant leftist government.
Source:
Al Jazeera and quality agencies
English (US) ·