On Thursday, the Brazilian Federal Public Ministry asked President Jair Bolsonaro's administration to remove from the Internet a text whereby the Defense Minister praises the 1964 military coup, which established a dictatorship that lasted until 1985.
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In a text that was read in all the barracks, the Defense Ministry defined the military coup as "a historical framework of Brazilian political evolution" that "responded to the anxieties" of society at the time. It also affirms that the coup "left a legacy of peace, freedom, and democracy."
The Public Ministry reinforced its request for the Bolsonaro administration to stop celebrating the military coup because it is not the first time it has done so. "This is a patent reiteration of an illegal act, which demonstrates the Government's undermining of the Constitution, the laws and the Democratic State of Law," it said.
It is not constitutional for a "public agent to use official communication channels to spread praiseworthy mentions of the exceptional regime... which systematically violated human rights and tortured and executed people."
Former President Lula da Silva, who leads the voting intention polls with a wide lead over Bolsonaro, repudiated the Defense Ministry's note emphasizing that Brazilians have nothing to celebrate. "Dictatorship never again. It was not a revolution, it was a dictatorship that tortured. We will never forget him," he said.
A report from a Truth Commission published in 2014 affirms that the dictatorship left at least 434 disappeared and thousands of people persecuted and tortured. These crimes against humanity, however, went unpunished due to an amnesty issued in 1979 by the military government itself.
The text was signed by Gen. Walter Braga Netto, who resigned on Thursday from the position of defense minister to prepare himself for the October elections, in which he could be Bolsonaro's candidate for vice president.