authoritarianism

Since Brazil’s 2016 parliamentary coup d’etat, in which former president Dilma Rousseff was removed on a later-exonerated technicality, Brazil’s ultra-right-wing president Jair Bolsonaro has made every effort to destroy any remnants of the legacy left by the Brazilian Workers’ Party (PT).

The so-called “nice guy” Premier Mike Baird is introducing laws in New South Wales that are designed to intimidate ordinary people from taking part in legitimate protests. The NSW government’s new anti-protest laws, which it is dressing up as being about public safety, were passed on March 15. Now, despite police minister Stuart Ayres admitting crime rates are falling, the government wants to give the NSW Police Force extraordinary powers to stop protests from even being organised.