The police in the Brazilian city of Sao Paolo used tear gas at the end of a mass protest against Brazil's new president who stepped into office to replace Dilma Rouseff. Rousseff was impeached on allegations of financial manipulation of state accounts, but has never been accused of any actual crime or corruption.
According to media reports, the crowd conducted a peaceful protest march and started to go into a local subway, when police suddenly attacked the crowd with tear gas.
The mass protest that gathered some 50,000 people was the largest wave of protest that goes on since Michael Temer sworn in on August 31.
The marchers, rallied by left-wing groups and unions aligned with Rousseff's Workers Party, called for new elections and chanted "Out with Temer!"
The police explained the gas attack as an attempt to stop vandalism. The attack caused panic and led clashes of protesters with police officers.
Michael Temer, whose approval rating is an incredibly low 12%, has a somewhat lengthy record of wrongdoings. In particular, he managed to step into office despite ongoing punishment for violating campaign finance laws in his 2014 election, that was supposed to keep him from running for political office for eight years.
He is also charged with channeling $400,000 in Petrobras kickbacks to one of his cronies running for mayor of Sao Paulo. On top of that, he is charged with paying off a construction executive some $300,000 in a bribe also related to the Petrobras scandal.
During his visit to the G20 summit in Hangzhou, China, Temer, who came to the event aiming to "reveal to the world that [Brazil has] political and legal stability", tried to play down the wave of protests in comments to reporters.
"They are small groups, not popular movements of any size," he said. "In a population of 204 million Brazilians, they are not representative."
