RIO DE JANEIRO : A Brazilian judge ruled that the government cannot carry on celebrations of the 55th anniversary of the 1964 military coup. A commemorative message praising the role of the military in 1964 should not be published or read, Judge Ivani Silva said, although such a message had already been read at least in the military command in the capital Brasilia. Earlier this month, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro ordered the country’s military to carry out “proper celebrations” of the 1964 coup, which he qualified as a “democratic revolution.” The coup inaugurated a military dictatorship which lasted two decades in Brazil and made thousands of victims. Bolsonaro’s order to celebrate the coup has aroused much criticism from the Brazilian Federal Prosecution Office, the Bar Association, and the victims’ associations.

Earlier on Friday, Fabian Salvioli, special rapporteur of the United Nations Human Rights Council, called Bolsonaro’s orders “immoral and inadmissible” and an attempt of revisionism.

The president then backpedaled, saying that he meant that the event should be remembered and observed, not praised.