Brazil president’s furious attack on the UN human rights chief with taunt about dead father
- President Bolsonaro’s comments came as the UN official raised concerns about killings by police in Brazil
- The Brazil leader was recently involved in a public spat with French President Emmanuel Macron
Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro taunted UN rights chief Michelle Bachelet Wednesday over her father’s death under 1970s Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, sparking a new international row after she raised concerns over a spike in killings by police.
Fresh from a spat with French President Emmanuel Macron over his management of wildfires raging in the Amazon, Bolsonaro took aim at Bachelet for allegedly meddling in Brazil’s internal affairs by “attacking our courageous civil police and military.”
The leftist former Chile president was “following Macron’s line,” Bolsonaro tweeted, later taunting Bachelet by praising the Pinochet regime, under which both she and her father were tortured.
Bachelet had told a news conference in Geneva that her office was concerned by a hike in killings by police officers and by broader human rights restrictions in Brazil.
She said that in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo alone, “1,291 individuals were killed by the police. It might be police action, but what I want to highlight is there is an increase from 12 to 17 per cent compared to the same period last year.”