"They brought back to the scene of the crime the greatest thief in the history of Brazil. A supporter of dictatorships. What they want is a dictatorship, with social control of the media," said Bolsonaro, referring to the Brazilian President, Lula da Silva, to the delight of the thousands of demonstrators who occupied part of the famous Copacabana beach.

"Lula, thief, your place is in prison," echoed in the crowd.

Jair Bolsonaro also said, without naming names, that they are attacking "the richest man in the world, who owns a platform whose goal is to make the whole world free."

"He is a man who preserves freedom for all of us, who had the courage to show with all the evidence where our democracy was going," he stressed, in an allusion to the recent attacks made by Elon Musk, owner of the social network X, to Alexandre de Moraes, the Supreme Court judge who is leading the investigations against Bolsonaro.

The judge is investigating Bolsonaro for his alleged involvement in the attempted coup that aimed to overthrow the government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on January 8, 2023, and has been repeatedly accused, in recent weeks, of censoring social networks.

According to the Brazilian Federal Police, Bolsonaro, after losing the 2022 elections, discussed with the military a draft of a coup d'état, which included arresting some Supreme Court justices and also provided for the holding of new presidential elections, using, as a pretext for irregularities, never proven, of fraud in electronic urns.

"We never played outside the four lines. Has anyone ever seen this draft of a coup? When we talk about a state of siege, it is a proposal that the president, within his constitutional attributions, can submit to the Brazilian parliament," Bolsonaro defended himself.

In today's demonstration, which aimed to raise popular support in the fight against the investigations and for the convictions that made him ineligible until 2030, Bolsonaro said that "the system has started to work against freedom of expression" and that "to complete the work of Juiz de Fora", where he was stabbed in 2018, during the electoral campaign that made him President of Brazil.

He defended himself after the conviction of the electoral court, which prevented him from running for any political office in the next eight years, for "abuse of political power", following a meeting, three months before the elections, with several ambassadors in Brasília, in which Bolsonaro gave misinformation about electronic voting and suggested that the army should intervene if the system failed.

"I had met with ambassadors, yes. I didn't meet with drug dealers in Morro do Alemão," he said, referring to the famous Rio de Janeiro favela.

Supporters of the former Brazilian president today filled part of the Copacabana waterfront in support of Jair Bolsonaro, in an event where the "Our Father" was prayed and Elon Musk was praised in the fight against 'red censorship' and gender ideology.

From 08:30, the demonstrators, mostly from Rio de Janeiro, began to position themselves in front of the two electric trios (open-top trucks used in Carnival) that were accommodating the 'vip' guests, such as Jair Bolsonaro, Michelle, his parliamentary children, governors, the evangelical pastor Silas Malafaia, as well as dozens of deputies and senators.

Billionaire Elon Musk was the omnipresent figure at the demonstration. Whenever a speech included his name, there was a round of applause.

According to the local press, around 35,000 people were present at the demonstration.

Read Also: Copacabana. Thousands expected for demonstration called by Bolsonaro (Portuguese version)