The Resolution of the Permanent Conference of Political Parties in Latin America and the Caribbean/COPPPAL

BRAZIL:

The coordinators of COPPPAL gathered in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on 22 and 23 May 2019, called on a strengthening of the worldwide solidarity campaign, demanding the immediate freedom of ex-president Lula, since his sentencing was totally irregular and lacking in evidence.

The judicial process has been denounced by internationally renowned lawyers and observers, who demonstrated against the non-compliance of the appropriate regulations of due process.

Lula and his family were investigated and nothing irregular was found. Nothing, no evidence of corruption or of any crime. The decision to convict the ex-president without any evidence of a crime just confirms what everybody already knew: a relentless persecution that Lula has been suffering by the media and by the judiciary.

Lula’s imprisonment was essential to curtail the workers rights, to curtail the hard fight for social security, to increase unemployment, decrease the minimum salary, to privatise, to plunder our natural resources and try to sell a company like Petrobras only to satisfy the interests of a an oligarchy and transnational companies.

Lula goes on fighting intensively, as he has done all his life, albeit under enormous pressure. The only crime committed by Lula was to remove more than 40 million people out of poverty, remove Brazil from the world hunger map, to implement social programmes and not allow the dismantling of the Brazilian State.

Translated by Cleusa Vicente, Free Lula UK Committee.