Brasilia (AFP)
A hundred thousand women from rural areas participated Wednesday in Brasilia, according to organizers, the traditional "March daisies", which this year took the form of a protest against President Jair Bolsonaro.
This "Daisy March" is held every four years in defense of the peasant world and women's rights, in a country very affected by domestic violence. It was also the occasion for calls for the release of former President Lula, imprisoned for corruption.
These women protested in the morning against government policy to expand pesticide use and Jair Bolsonaro's stated intention to allow mineral exploration on indigenous lands or in protected areas.
Women members of indigenous tribes across Brazil who had been demonstrating the day before in the capital to denounce the "genocidal policies" of the far-right president joined the march on Wednesday.
Carrying placards "sovereignty of the people", "free Lula", or claiming a "free from violence" Brazil, the demonstrators marched on the Esplanade of the Ministries towards the surroundings of the presidential palace of Planalto.
The former president of the left Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (2003-2010), has been serving a prison sentence of eight years and 10 months since April 2018 for corruption and money laundering.
The majority of the protesters wore flowers, straw hats and purple clothing, the symbolic color of this protest march.
In speeches, some have denounced a Jair Bolsonaro "misogynist, racist and homophobic".
"We are living through difficult times with a government that is attacking us all the time ... We are losing hard-won rights," Julian Joucoski, a 43-year-old teacher from Curitiba, told AFP (south) .
"Women are at the heart of all the violence in Brazil," said Fabiana Nascimento, 42, also a teacher, from the state of Mananhao (north-east), with paper daisies in her hands.
"We must say 'no' to any policy that destroys the rights of the population," she adds, "the situation in the countryside has worsened ... No, we have never had a president so disrespectful of education. "
This is the third demonstration in Brasilia in two days, a protest movement also taking place Tuesday in the capital against cuts in education and pension reform, in parallel with the demonstration of indigenous women.
© 2019 AFP