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Lula in prison, appeal by Bentivogli: "Democracy in danger"

The secretary of the FIM Cisl metalworkers, with Gianni Alioti (the union's international office), published a manifesto-appeal in favor of the condemned ex-president. "A story dotted with abuses of power, a campaign orchestrated by oligarchs, soldiers and reactionary political forces to prevent him from running for re-election".

Lula in prison, appeal by Bentivogli: "Democracy in danger"

The FIM-CISL, representing over 210 metalworkers, expresses its opinion
solidarity with Lula and considers his imprisonment a shameful page
of the history of Brazil.

The judicial affair which involved Lula is studded with a long series of abuses of
power of the judiciary against him, within an orchestrated campaign
by oligarchs, military and reactionary political forces in the media so that the ex-president,
who had finished his second presidential term in 2010 with an index of
approval rating above 80 percent and what Obama wanted at the UN, he couldn't
run again in the 2018 elections.

Despite this, Lula has seen voting intentions towards him grow in the last two years
him in all electoral polls, which still show him winning against any opponent.
In a country where the level of corruption has always been very high, Lula – both before and
after his presidential term from 2003 to 2010 – passed an obsessive sieve
on his private life and that of his family without a penny out of place being found,
suspicious enrichment. Despite this, Lula was sentenced for “atos
indeterminados” (as stated verbatim in the sentence) and from 7 April 2018 has
started serving a 12-year sentence. In practice, the ex-president was convicted
according to only circumstantial elements and presumed corruption.

Confirming that in the trial, conviction and imprisonment of Lula came
minus respect for the democratic rule of law, its laws and itself
Brazilian Constitution, two facts prove it.

The first concerns the sentence of Judge Moro who does not even identify the
specific acts of corruption of which Lula is accused, in exchange for the property (an apartment of
three floors in the locality of Guarujà), which never reached him in his possession and in which he has never
stayed, neither he nor any of his family members. This is demonstrated by the fact that, before Lula was
been convicted, another judge foreclosed on the property still owned by the
construction company. Paradoxically what for Moro was the main boss
of indictment against Lula, for another Brazilian judge it continued to be property
of the builder until the seizure.

The second fact concerns the judgment on habeas corpus (an important instrument for the protection
of individual liberty against arbitrary action by the state), used in legal systems
of common law, to avoid detention without concrete elements of accusation and/or without
that all the appeals by the defense and the degrees of judgment have been completed. The Supreme
Tribunal Federal – STF by six votes to five decided that the presumption of innocence
engraved in the art. 5, paragraph 57 of the Brazilian Constitution (“ninguém seráconsiderado
culpado até o trânsito em julgado de sentença penal condenatória”) does not apply to
Lula, forced to serve his sentence after the second degree sentence. Decisive was the
vote of the President of the Court, Carmen Lucia who was the same a few months ago
crucial to release Aécio Neves, PSDB senator, presidential candidate
defeated by Dilma, recorded red-handed demanding large bribes of money from the
meat tycoon Joesley Batista.

These are the reasons, and not just the friendship that binds us to Lula, that bring us like
to take sides, together with the international and Brazilian trade union movement, against
the arbitrary arrest of the ex-president, for the restoration of the rule of law and the defense of
democracy in Brazil!

#JamaisAprisionarãoNossosSonhos

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