U.S. Presidential Hopeful Bernie Sanders Backs Lula’s Freedom

The Democratic Senator rejects President Donald Trump’s support to far-right governments around the world.

31 August 2019

The United States democrat presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders made statements in favor of Brazil’s former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva release during a political rally held in Florence, South Carolina, on August 30.

At the event stage designated to answer questions from the audience, a young man asked the Democrat senator on his opinion regarding the emergence of far-right governments around the world.

One of them is currently headed by former captain Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, a country where a corrupt judicial investigation has kept the Workers’ Party (PT) leader as a political prisoner since April 2018.

“Somebody has written to Brazilian authorities to get Lula out of jail; it is an issue that I feel very strongly about,” Sanders said.

“The U.S. needs to conduct a foreign policy based on democracy and human rights, the very opposite of what Trump is doing now, as he supports authoritarian governments in Brazil.”

Since June 9, the Intercept journalist Glenn Greenwald has been revealing information that proves that Brazilian authorities carried out unethical and illegal actions to keep Lula da Silva out of the 2018 presidential elections.

To get the Workers’ Party leader to go to prison, former judge Sergio Moro, who is currently Bolsonaro’s Justice Minister, acted in collusion with Deltan Dallagnol, the chief prosecutor of the “Car Wash” investigation.

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When that information was known, Senator Sanders also requested that Lula da Silva be released due to the abuses committed in the judicial process for which he was unduly convicted.

“It is clearer than ever that Lula da Silva was imprisoned in a politicized prosecution that denied him a fair trial and due process. During his presidency, Lula oversaw huge reductions in poverty and remains Brazil’s most popular politician. I stand with political and social leaders across the globe who are calling on Brazil’s judiciary to release Lula and annul his conviction,” Sanders said in a statement provided to The Intercept

Published at https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/U.S.-Presidential-Hopeful-Bernie-Sanders-Backs-Lulas-Freedom-20190831-0005.html