Luis Roberto Barroso is booed and called an “enemy” at a UNE congress

Minister Luis Roberto Barroso, of the Federal Supreme Court (STF), was the target of boos and protests while speaking at the opening of the 59th Congress of the National Union of Students (UNE), in Brasília, on the night of this Wednesday (12). The magistrate countered the criticism by saying that he faced and defeated “Bolsonarism”.

The protest against Barroso was organized by a group of students called Faísca Revolucionaria, which opposes the current direction of UNE. The movement is formed by young Trotskyists linked to the Revolutionary Workers Movement (MRT).

According to the students, the protest occurred due to the minister’s role in processes at the STF, such as the nursing floor and the impeachment of former president Dilma Rousseff (PT), in 2016.

“UNE Congress begins with a rejection of Barroso from the STF, enemy of nursing and ally of the 2016 coup. indigenous people and the students,” said the students.

Barroso responded and said that “nothing that is happening here is strange to me”. “I’m not afraid of boos because we have a country to build”, he said, also confessing that he faced and defeated “Bolsonarism”.

In addition to the boos, the students raised a banner criticizing the minister, calling him an “enemy of nursing and articulator of the 2016 coup”, and posters in defense of the minimum floor for the category suspended by Barroso in September last year, but re-established in May. “I was the one who got the nursing money because I didn’t have any money,” he replied.

Still refuting the protest, Barroso stated that Brazil has come a “long way” so that people can demonstrate as they wish, and that only “dictatorship closes Congress, revokes mandates, creates censorship, [e] there are political prisoners”.

In response to the statements, opposition deputies began to articulate to present a request for Barroso’s impeachment. The allegation is that the minister committed the crime of “exercising party-political activity”.

Nikolas Ferreira (PL-MG) stated that “the loss of office is undeniable”, while Bia Kicis (PL-DF) considered the speech to be very serious. “At a partisan political event, he confessed that he acted against a political force,” she said.

In addition to Barroso, Minister Carlos Fávaro, of Agriculture, was also the target of student protests. In a post on Instagram, the group said it was “ashamed” and that the UNE demonstrates “the total willingness of the majority to link up with central figures, totally alien to the interests of students, workers and indigenous and oppressed peoples”.

The president of UNE, Bruna Brelaz, did not respond to the students’ protests against Barroso and Fávaro, only saying that this was the “first time since redemocratization” that a minister of the STF participates in the event.