The Minister of the General Secretariat of the Presidency, Guilherme Boulos, declared this Sunday (14), during a demonstration on Avenida Paulista, that PL dosimetry is a “shameful amnesty” and that Congress must listen to “the voice of the people”.
“Dosimetry is nothing less than a shameful amnesty. We don’t care about a shameless amnesty or a shameful amnesty,” Boulos said. “A good crook is a stopped crook,” he added while speaking.
Boulos also defended that former President Jair Bolsonaro (PL) was fully serving the sentence to which he was sentenced for attempted coup d’état and preached unity for the re-election of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) in 2026. According to the minister, it is necessary to “make Bolsonaro watch Lula’s victory from prison.”
Boulos said dosimetry was approved “in the middle of the night” in the House and that Congress must listen to “the voice of the people.” According to him, the Senate, which is currently analyzing the project, cannot make “the same mistake as the Chamber”. The demonstrators responded by shouting in unison “no amnesty”.
Boulos also criticized the approval, in the Senate, of a project that recognizes the timetable for demarcation of indigenous lands, and defended the end of the 6:1 scale and the taxation of high incomes. According to the minister, people have been waiting for a long time for “the super rich to start getting their hands dirty and paying taxes”.
“They (members of Congress) are trying to turn their backs on the Brazilian people,” said Boulos, a dismissed federal deputy from the Psol-SP. He also said the arrest of military personnel convicted of coup plotting constitutes “historic reparation.”
Protesters occupied a section of Avenida Paulista this Sunday afternoon to protest the reduced sentences and amnesty of those convicted of the coup plot, including former President Bolsonaro. Organized by Lula’s base, the national mobilization also put pressure on the National Congress to approve programs of interest to the government, such as the end of 6:1.
Besides the slogan “no amnesty”, the participants described the Congress as “enemy of the people”. One of the main targets of the demonstration is the President of the Chamber, Hugo Motta (Republicanos-PB), who decided to introduce PL dosimetry by surprise last week. Among the choruses heard in Paulista, one of them was “fora, Hugo Motta”.
Boulos downplayed the political consequences of the clash with Motta. “The social movement has the autonomy to call for protests,” he said, calling the protest a response to the approval of dosimetry in the House.
Also in Paulista, the Minister of Agrarian Development, Paulo Teixeira, declared that Lula should veto dosimetry, if the text reaches him for sanction. “This dosimetry opens the door to amnesty,” said Teixeira, adding that the governor of São Paulo, Tarcísio de Freitas (Republicans), “was one of the architects” of the project to reduce the sentences of the putschists.
The national president of the PT, Edinho Silva, one of the last to speak at the sound truck, around 6 p.m., gave a positive assessment of the national mobilizations, praised “the strength of the people in the streets” and declared that the government camp “contested the future agenda of Brazil” with “the right and fascism”.
He cited Lula’s measures such as income reform and the debate on zero customs duties, in opposition to the “agenda built in collusion with the elites” and “ministerial agreements”. “We are not going to fall back into a coup d’état,” demanded the leader of the PT.
Sunday’s event brought together 13,700 people on Avenida Paulista, according to a survey by the Political Debate Monitor of the Brazilian Center for Analysis and Planning (Cebrap), a partnership between the University of São Paulo (USP) and the NGO More in Common.
The survey’s margin of error is 12%. According to the count, at peak times the audience was between 12,100 and 15,400 participants. The calculation was made from aerial photos analyzed with artificial intelligence software.
During the demonstration against the blingagem PEC, in September, the same group of researchers reported the presence of 42.4 thousand people on the avenue.
Criticism from parliamentarians and booing
In his speech, State Deputy Guilherme Cortés (Psol-SP) called Motta the “biggest rat” and “biggest coward” in the country. The leader of the Homeless Workers Movement (MTST), Natalia Szermeta Boulos, married to Minister Boulos, booed the Speaker of the House. There were also boos against the federal deputy Paulinho da Força (Solidariedade-SP), rapporteur of the PL dosimetry.
Federal deputy Erika Hilton (Psol-SP) said that Congress should concern itself with issues of “real interest to the Brazilian people” and that dosimetry “only interests a minority” of the population. Sâmia Bomfim (Psol-SP) reiterated that the main objective of the law is to convince the Senate to interrupt the vote on dosimetry.
There were also performances by singers like Chico César and Zélia Duncan, as well as artists from the alternative scene, who sang Brazilian protest songs. Rain forecasts for the event in Paulista have not been confirmed.
The demonstration was called by the Povo sem Medo and Brasil Popular fronts, which bring together hundreds of social movements, and reinforced by trade union organizations and left-wing parties, such as the PT, the Psol and the PC do B.
The alleys in both directions of Avenida Paulista were invaded, in front of the museum, by war cries and messages such as “Rotten Congress” and “prison for putschists”.
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