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imperialism
'Great Day' for Brazil as Coup Plotter Bolsonaro Convicted, Sentenced to 27 Years
One commentator noted that Brazil's Supreme Court "refused to cave to imperialist threats" from the Trump administration.
Sep 11, 2025
Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro was sentenced to over 27 years behind bars Thursday after four of five Supreme Court justices on a panel voted to convict the far-right leader and seven associates of plotting a military coup and assassination of current President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and other officials.
"This criminal case is almost a meeting between Brazil and its past, its present, and its future," said Justice Cármen Lúcia Antunes Rocha, on Thursday cast the third and decisive vote to convict the former president and seven co-plotters, referring in part to the two decades of US-backed military dictatorship, during which Bolsonaro served as an army paratrooper.
Lúcia joined Justices Flávio Dino, Cristiano Zanin, and Alexandre de Moraes—who, along with Lula and Brazilian Vice President Geraldo Alckmin were targeted for assassination by the plotters—in voting to convict the defendants of attempting to subvert Lula's victory in the 2022 presidential election.
The defendants—who in addition to Bolsonaro include army generals and former Defense Ministers Walter Braga Netto and Paulo Sérgio Nogueira de Oliveira; former Institutional Security Minister Augusto Heleno Ribiero; admiral and former Navy Commander Almir Garnier Santos; former Justice Minister Anderson Torres; and former presidential adviser Márcio Mirando—were found guilty of crimes including attempting a coup, involvement in an armed criminal organization, attempting the violent abolition of democratic rule of law, and aggravated damage of the state's assets.
Lt. Col. Mauro Cid, a former Bolsonaro aide who turned state's witness, was sentenced Thursday to two years of confinement under open conditions, the most lenient form of carceral punishment in the Brazilian justice system.
"The government wanted to remain in power by simply ignoring democracy—and that is what constitutes a coup d'état," Moraes said ahead of his vote on Tuesday. "The leader of the criminal group made it clear—publicly and in his own words—that he would never accept defeat at the ballot, a democratic loss in the elections, and that he would never abide by the will of the people."
Bolsonaro was sentenced to 27 years, 3 months in prison, with penalties for the other convicted defendants still uncertain as of Thursday evening. Bolsonaro, who is 70 years old, denies any wrongdoing. He is currently under house arrest and could remain there until after exhausting the appeals process. He is already banned from running for any office until 2030 due to his abuse of power related to baseless claims of electoral fraud.
Justice Luiz Fux voted Thursday to absolve Bolsonaro, asserting that there was "absolutely no proof" that the former president took part in or was even aware of the coup and assassination plot.
However, Lúcia argued that there was copious evidence indicating that Bolsonaro and his accomplices acted "with the purpose of eroding democracy and institutions."
"They acted to hijack the soul of the republic," she said. "The case files show a coordinated criminal enterprise by the defendants, who adopted the methods of a digital militia to attack the judiciary, the electoral system, and the electronic voting machines."
The landmark verdict came amid acute political polarization in Latin America's biggest democracy and threats from the office of US President Donald Trump to unleash American "military might" in defense of the "Trump of the Tropics," as Bolsonaro is often called. The Trump administration has already slapped 50% tariffs on Brazilian imports and has sanctioned Moraes.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio responded to Thursday's developments by vowing on social media that "the United States will respond accordingly to this witch hunt."
Like Trump in 2020, Bolsonaro made many baseless allegations that his loss in the 2022 election was due to fraud, fueling lies and conspiracy theories that led to the January 8, 2023 mob attacks on government buildings. Around 1,500 Bolsonaro supporters were arrested in the days following the storming of Congress and the presidential offices.
While many right-wing Brazilians were outraged by the convictions, leftist lawmakers and others applauded what Lula's Workers' Party (PT) called "a historic moment for Brazil."
Brazilian Secretary of Institutional Affairs Gleisi Hoffmann (PT) said on social media, "The conviction of Jair Bolsonaro and his accomplices by the Federal Supreme Court expresses the vigor of democracy and national sovereignty."
"They were convicted in due legal process, based on compelling evidence of the crimes they committed," she continued. "It is a historic, unprecedented decision so that they may never again dare to attack the rule of law and the will of the people expressed at the ballot box."
"It is also the proud response of Brazil's judiciary to the economic sanctions and absurd coercion of the Donald Trump government, in conspiracy with the traitors to the homeland in the service of Bolsonaro," Hoffmann added. "Today... Brazil told the world that crimes against democracy are intolerable. And they are unforgivable."
Federal Deputy Talíria Petrone (Socialism and Liberty-Rio de Janeiro) called Thursday "the greatest day ever," while former colleague Jean Wyllys also hailed this "great day."
Erika Hilton, a Socialism and Liberty federal deputy representing São Paulo, taunted Bolsonaro with the prospect of a lengthy stay at a notorious maximum security penitentiary.
Federal Deputy Benedita da Silva (PT-Rio de Janeiro) said on social media that "democratic Brazil is proud and celebrating the firm decision" of the high court, "whose members suffered countless threats, including death threats, from the conspirators against the democratic rule of law."
Referring to the United States, da Silva praised the justices, who "did not bow to the threats to our sovereignty from the greatest external power."
"Now we have to defeat the amnesty coup of the convicted plotters that they are still trying to pass," she added, a reference to efforts by the right-wing Congress to pass clemency legislation for Bolsonaro. "No amnesty!"Keep ReadingShow Less
Reclaiming God from Empire: Nonviolence in an Age of Religious Nationalism
The world doesn’t need more interfaith conferences. It needs a defiant, loving, spiritually alive army saying, “No” to every lie told in God’s name and “Yes” to every human being whose dignity is at risk.
Aug 27, 2025
I didn’t set out to study nonviolence. Like many, I stumbled upon it in fragments, quotes that refused to leave me, the persistent sense that some ancient wisdom was trying to cut through the noise of our modern world.
Over time, through teaching, crisis counseling, community organizing, and meditation, I’ve come to a radical realization: Nonviolence is not merely a political tactic or a personal ethic. It is a global resistance movement against the fusion of religion and empire. It is how we reclaim God from the powers that abuse the sacred to justify violence.
We live in an age of rising religious nationalism. From Hindu majoritarianism in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s India, to Christian nationalism in the United States, to theocratic impulses behind Israeli settler expansionism, to Islamist authoritarianism across parts of the Middle East, violent ideologies drape themselves in sacred flags. Across continents, politics does not just use religion, it deifies power itself.
These movements, despite differences in theology, share a dangerous logic: God belongs to the nation-state. Dissent is heresy. Violence in defense of faith is holy. From Trump rallies invoking Jesus as a warrior against “wokeness,” to mobs in Sri Lanka attacking Muslim businesses under Buddhist banners, the message is the same: We are the faithful, and they are the enemy.
This is not faith. It is idolatry.
Nonviolence is not weakness, it is moral imagination.
The through line is the same everywhere: Political machines manipulate our spiritual longing—our desire for meaning, belonging, and moral clarity—into instruments of fear. Fear of invasion, moral decay, the other. Religion fused with nationalism offers an intoxicating narrative: You are chosen, your suffering righteous, your violence divinely sanctioned.
The consequences are stark: genocide in Myanmar, insurgencies in Nigeria, mass protests in Iran led by women chanting “Zan, Zendegi, Azadi”—Woman, Life, Freedom.
Yet, wherever God is weaponized, people of conscience rise to reclaim the sacred.
The prophets of scripture were never courtiers to kings. Jeremiah, Amos, Isaiah, Jesus, Muhammad, the Buddha, Guru Nanak—they stood outside the gates, shouting warnings. They taught that God is never found in empires but in the poor, the exiled, the occupied.
Jesus did not die because he preached love; he died because he preached a love that refused Caesar. His nonviolence was not meekness; it was resistance. To “love your enemies” was to forgive Roman soldiers, tax collectors, collaborators, a revolutionary courage that unsettled empires.
Mahatma Gandhi understood this deeply. His weapon was truth; his discipline, nonviolence. His target: the British Empire, which fused God, king, and commerce into one colonial theology. Gandhi’s Ahimsa was a spiritual rebuke to every religion that justified oppression in God’s name. He was not just a nationalist, he was an exorcist.
The world has changed. Weapons are faster. Propaganda is louder. Failures now risk climate catastrophe, nuclear war, genocide. Yet the core dynamic remains: Empire seeks to baptize its violence. In President Vladimir Putin’s Russia, Orthodox priests bless missiles. In Gaza and southern Israel, both Hamas and Israeli extremists quote scripture to justify massacres. In the US, Bible verses are wielded to demonize LGBTQ+ communities and suppress reproductive rights. Meanwhile, the poor remain poor, the Earth burns, and God’s name is dragged through bloodied streets.
Resistance requires more than interfaith talk or symbolic gestures. We need a global, spiritually rooted movement connecting every site of conscience. Pastors, imams, rabbis, monks, Indigenous elders, atheists, spiritual seekers, anyone refusing the false choice between extremism and moral apathy.
Such movements exist, though rarely in headlines:
- In Iraq, Muslim and Christian activists march together for water rights and anti-corruption.
- In Nigeria, interfaith committees interrupt cycles of revenge violence.
- In the US, Jewish and Christian leaders occupy Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centers, practicing faith in action.
- In India, Dalit Buddhists and Sikhs resist Hindutva ideology with solidarity, not hatred.
- In Brazil, Afro-Brazilian religious practitioners confront evangelical persecution through ritual, music, and protest.
These are the prophets of our time, not famous, not always safe, but always faithful.
Nonviolence may seem fragile in a world of drones, deepfakes, authoritarian surveillance, beheadings, bombings. Hunger strikes against indifferent governments can feel meaningless. Yet, Abdul Ghaffar Khan, the “Frontier Gandhi,” organized 100,000 Pashtun men into a nonviolent army, declaring, “It is cowardice to kill. It requires courage to be nonviolent.”
I recall historical images of Black Panthers feeding children, monks lying before tanks in Myanmar, Standing Rock, grandmothers chaining themselves to border fences, Iranian women burning hijabs in defiance. Nonviolence is not weakness, it is moral imagination. It refuses empire the power to define our dignity.
It is difficult. I fail daily. My thoughts are not always peaceful; my rhetoric sometimes sharp. I am still unlearning the myth that power requires domination. Yet we must try. The alternative is annihilation.
As a counselor and teacher, I witness the spiritual devastation of religious violence, not only physical, but emotional: shame, fear, exclusion. A woman fleeing an evangelical cult. A gay teen rejected by his mosque. A veteran praying for forgiveness nightly after deploying drone strikes.
Reclaiming God is urgent. Pastoral. Political. Global. The world doesn’t need more interfaith conferences. It needs a defiant, loving, spiritually alive army saying, “No” to every lie told in God’s name and “Yes” to every human being whose dignity is at risk.
Yes to Palestinians and Israelis. Yes to Muslims and Hindus. Yes to atheists and fundamentalists. Yes to victims—and, if they seek it, to the redeemed.
The God I follow does not wave flags. Does not draw borders. Is found in the faces of those who show up unarmed. If faith is real, it must be revolutionary. If God is just, God must be liberated from every flag, every bomb, every distorted sermon.
This is the work. And it requires all of us.
Nonviolence or nonexistence. Gandhi and King made their choice. What will ours be?
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More Countries Condemn Trump's 'Imperialist' Saber-Rattling Against Venezuela
An alliance of Latin American and Caribbean nations said Trump's military deployment poses "a threat to the stability and self-determination of all the peoples" of the region.
Aug 23, 2025
China and members of an alliance of Latin American and Caribbean nations in recent days joined countries including Brazil and Colombia and anti-war voices around the world in denouncing the Trump administration's deployment of US warships off the coast of Venezuela.
At least three US Navy guided missile destroyers and thousands of Marines are currently off the coast of Venezuela, with Pentagon officials citing President Donald Trump's January executive order designating drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations and his directive authorizing military force to combat narcotraffickers abroad.
On Thursday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said that "China opposes any move that violates the purposes and principles of the [United Nations] Charter and a country's sovereignty and security."
"We oppose the use or threat of force in international relations and the interference of external forces in Venezuela's internal affairs under any pretext," she added. "We hope that the United States will do more things conducive to peace and security in Latin America and the Caribbean region."
Mao's remarks came on the same day that members of the 11-nation Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America-Peoples' Trade Treaty (ALBA-TCP) issued a declaration during the group's virtual 13th Extraordinary Summit of Heads of State and Government condemning the Trump administration's "imperialist policy of harassment and destabilization" and demanding "the immediate cessation of military threat or action" against Venezuela.
The declaration expresses support for Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and decries the "groundless, mythomaniacal accusations with no legal basis" against him by the Trump administration, which alleges that Maduro is one of the world's leading drug traffickers. Trump recently doubled the Biden administration's bounty on Maduro from $25 million to $50 million.
In 2020, the first Trump administration's Department of Justice charged Maduro and 14 Venezuelan officials with narco-terrorism and conspiracy to import cocaine into the US, accusations the South American leader denies. The charges followed Trump's formal recognition in 2019 of an opposition coup leader as the legitimate president of Venezuela—a policy continued by the Biden administration—and the imposition of a full economic embargo on Caracas.
The ALBA-TCP declaration asserts that the Trump administration "seeks to delegitimize sovereign governments and pave the way for foreign intervention."
"These practices not only constitute a direct attack on Venezuela's independence, but also a threat to the stability and self-determination of all the peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean," the alliance added.
Addressing the summit Thursday, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel said that "Cuba firmly denounces this new demonstration of imperial force and makes a call to ALBA-TCP and from here to all the peoples of the world to condemn this irrational attack by the Trump administration," according to Venezuelanalysis.
"The issue is not only Cuba, the whole region is under threat and only with integration can we fight against that because the United States intends to define the options to subjugate us or be objects of aggression," Díaz-Canel added.
As Common Dreams reported, other Latin American leaders also condemned Trump's military deployment, with Colombian President Gustavo Petro telling his Cabinet Wednesday that "the gringos are mad if they think invading Venezuela will solve their problem" and Celso Amorim, a foreign policy adviser to Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, warning of "the risk of an escalation" and reiterating that "the principle of nonintervention is fundamental" to international order.
Although Trump has been a vocal critic of the regime change policies of past administrations—especially that of fellow Republican George W. Bush—he and members of his Cabinet have floated the idea of ousting Maduro, including via US invasion.
The United States has been meddling in Venezuela's affairs since the 19th century, citing the dubious Monroe Doctrine to assist coups, support brutal dictatorships, and pursue policies of economic strangulation in an effort to exert control over the country and its immense petroleum resources.
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