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Residents across Brazil were invited to a “party” on social media – the festa invites were a series of thinly disguised metaphors to gather at a complex of government buildings known as Praça dos Três Poderes (Three Powers Square) outside Congress to protest the election results. The main one was an invitation for Brazilians to attend Selma’s Party.
Selma is a play on the word selva, which in Portugues translates to jungle, it is also used by the Brazilian military as a war cry. The demonstrators were staunch supporters of Brazil’s former President Jair Bolsonaro and were asking the new president, leftist Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, to leave – falsely claiming that he won in a stolen election.
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Prior to the violent protest, influencers on social media platforms invited “patriots” to Festa da Selma.
In one viral video, a man describes the ingredients for the party, including a brand of Brazilian sugar called Union, and five large heads of corn. Corn is another wordplay. Milho means corn and milhão means a million. The suggestion is that five million people were invited to attend the protest.
One of first to use Selma’s Party was a now-deleted Twitter profile @Fernand58617686, whose bio read, “God, Homeland, family and freedom. Conservative, Right.”
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In another now-suspended Twitter account, @VanessasDire, wrote, “Selma’s party is going to be rocking today. Guests keep coming! She asked you to make this invitation viral! Entry is free for all Brazilian patriots, except for children and the elderly. It’s going to be the greatest show of all time, don’t miss out Cheers Selma.”
Organizers posted dates, times and routes for the “Liberty Caravans” that would pick people up in at least six Brazilian states and ferry them to the party. The posts advertised “free buses” with “everything for free: water, coffee, lunch, dinner.”
On Sunday, the online activism culminated in busloads of people landing in the capital, Brasília. The protesters, dressed in the nation’s green and yellow colors, smashed windows and furniture and ripped up documents before law enforcement forced them back into the streets.
Following the riot, Brazilians authorities detained about 1,500 supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro who participated in riots that targeted Congress, the Presidential Palace and the Supreme Court.
Brazilian President Lula da Silva has vowed consequences for those who participated and has opened an investigation into how the riot was financed.
“We will not allow democracy to slip out of our hands,” da Silva said Monday evening. “In the name of defending democracy, we will not act in an authoritarian way with anyone, but we also will not go lightly on them. We will investigate and find out who financed it.”
In a series of tweets, Bolsonaro condemned the “depredations and invasions of public buildings,” according to a translation of his tweet.
President Joe Biden condemned the violent protest on Sunday while traveling in El Paso, Texas, calling it “outrageous.”
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National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan tweeted, “The United States condemns any effort to undermine democracy in Brazil. President Biden is following the situation closely and our support for Brazil’s democratic institutions is unwavering. Brazil’s democracy will not be shaken by violence.”
Secretary of State Antony Blinken wrote that the U.S. condemns the attacks, stating, “Using violence to attack democratic institutions is always unacceptable. We join @lulaoficial in urging an immediate end to these actions.”
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On Monday, Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, declared the rioting “a violating event” and said it would remove “content that supports or praises these actions.”
