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Rousseff meets with thousands of supporters in political rally

Xinhua, June 4, 2016 Adjust font size:

Suspended Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff on Friday participated in a political rally and addressed her supporters in Porto Alegre in her home state of Rio Grande do Sul.

The rally gathered some 10,000 people who oppose Rousseff's impeachment, which has led to the ascension of Vice President Michel Temer to the top office.

Rousseff spoke against the impeachment process, calling it a coup, an opinion shared by a significant number of Brazilians.

"After a long period of dictatorship, in which people could not express themselves, they want to destroy and violate our democracy. I was elected with the votes of 52 million Brazilians," she stressed.

"They want to stop me from talking on the streets, they do not want me to go around this country and denounce the coup," said Rousseff, referring to the edict issued earlier in the day by Temer, which limited her official trips to only between Brasilia and Rio Grande do Sul, where her home is.

As suspended president, Rousseff was forbidden from using president's official planes but retained her right to a government plane.

An impeachment, under Brazilian law, requires a conviction of crime of responsibility, but the allegedly illegal budget decrees leading to her suspension were never a crime, she reiterated on Friday to the rally.

On Thursday evening, a similar protest gathered thousands of participants, mostly women, in Rio de Janeiro, to express opposition against Rousseff's impeachment.

Rousseff was temporarily removed from office in May for up to 180 days after the Senate agreed to open an impeachment trial.

With no charges of corruption weighing against her, Rousseff is being judged for administrative misconduct and disregard for the federal budget as well as delaying payments to public banks.

Calls between politicians recently leaked to the Brazilian press indicate that the impeachment process was seemingly conceived as a way to quickly oust Rousseff from office and to halt a corruption investigation which is getting close to the country's high-profile politicians. Endi