2013 Protests

It all began in July 2013. People went to the streets to protest against the PEC 37, a constitutional amendment that would weaken the power of investigation of federal prosecutors. This movement in 2013 can be seen as the start of operation Lava Jato (Car Wash), the biggest brazilian investigation against corruption, that began one year after the protests. The Lava Jato scandal started with Petrobrás and now, almost two years later, the investigation is still burning the country. The huge majority of brazilian politicians are involved in this investigation and people are saying that Brazil will never be the same. The hope is for a beggining of a new country after Lava Jato. This new Brazil would never be able to be born if people weren’t on the streets from July 2013 till September 2014. It was a turbulent period for our democracy but at the same time a beautiful and powerful movement of the society started to rise. These pictures in Rio de Janeiro depict this period of intense protests and violent responses from the police and the government. Our time of dictatorship (1964-1985) was remembered - and we even had the second impeachment in 30 years of democracy, which was a coup, "House of Cards" style. We don't know when operation Lava Jato will end but we do expect all the criminals to pay for the crimes of corruption and diversion of public money. And we also hope that Brazil can mature politically and as a society from this.