Brasília - (AFP) - Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and the heads of Congress and the Supreme Court stressed the need for democracy in Brazil, in the wake of the violent attack carried out by supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro on these highly symbolic positions of government in Brasilia.

Police dismantled the tents of radical Bolsonaro supporters who still rejected Lula's victory more than two months after his election, while also making arrests, maintaining control of the situation after the chaos of the night before.

Meanwhile, Bolsonaro was hospitalized with abdominal pain, his wife, Michele, said on Instagram. According to media reports, Bolsonaro was taken to the Advent Health Celebration urgent care hospital outside Orlando, Florida.

Lula met with the presidents of the Senate, the Chamber of Deputies and the Supreme Court at the presidential palace in Planalto.

These officials signed a joint statement "In Defense of Democracy", which was posted on the left-wing president's Twitter account.

"The authorities of the Republic, the guarantors of democracy and the 1988 constitution, reject the terrorist, subversive, criminal and coup acts that took place yesterday in Brasilia. Society needs to maintain its calm (...) peace and democracy," the statement said.

Hundreds of former President Bolsonaro's supporters launched simultaneous attacks on the Planalto Palace and the Congress and Supreme Court headquarters, and it took the security forces about four hours to regain control of these headquarters.

And the center of the capital, Brasilia, appeared stricken and deserted on Monday morning, with the exception of the deployment of a large number of security forces.

"The putschists who vandalized public property in Brasilia are being identified and will be held accountable," the leftist president, who inspected the vandalized buildings in Brasilia late Sunday, wrote in a tweet.

More than 300 people were arrested following the attacks, which recalled the storming of supporters of former US President Donald Trump, an ally of Bolsonaro, at the Congressional Building in Washington in January 2021.

On Monday morning, Brazilian media confirmed that police and army forces dismantled tents that Bolsonaro supporters had erected in the center of the capital, Brasilia, more than two months ago, and arrested no less than 1,200 people there.

An AFP correspondent reported that other tents in Rio de Janeiro were also dismantled.

"Now that the orders have been issued, we no longer have a choice, it is an order from the armed forces and the police," Carlos Silva, a supporter of the former president, told AFP in Sao Paulo.

On Sunday evening, Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Morais suspended the governor of Brasilia Ibañez Rocha from his duties for 90 days, after he apologized in a video for security "holes" that allowed the vandalism to take place.

The Public Prosecution Office demanded that investigations be opened immediately to determine the "responsibilities of the persons involved" in the attacks on official buildings.

The attackers caused severe damage to the three huge headquarters, which are masterpieces of modern architecture, rich in works of art, and considered to be of invaluable value.

Brazilian First Lady Rosângela da Silva had previously complained about the situation in which the Bolsonaro couple left the presidential residence.
For his part, Ionar Bispo, 43, a resident of Brasilia, told AFP, "I am not satisfied with what happened. We can demonstrate, but without looting our heritage."
The acts of vandalism sparked a barrage of international reactions, especially from Washington, Beijing, Moscow, Paris and Latin American countries.
US President Joe Biden, his Mexican counterpart Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau condemned Bolsonaro's supporters' attack on power centers in his country, in a joint statement issued Monday. "We stand by Brazil as it defends its democratic institutions," added the three leaders meeting in Mexico City on Monday and Tuesday. "We look forward to working with President Lula."
Bolsonaro had moved to Florida in the United States two days before Lula's inauguration on January 1, refusing to hand over the presidential sash to his opponent who narrowly defeated him in the presidential elections last October.
In a series of tweets, Bolsonaro condemned the "storming and looting of public buildings" on Sunday, but he rejected Lula's accusations that he had instigated the storming of the headquarters of power in Brasilia, considering these accusations to be "baseless." Bolsonaro also defended on Twitter the right to hold "peaceful protests".