What they are doing to Cabral was not done during the dictatorship.

I disagree with the measures that Judge Marcelo Betas ordered when transferring former governor Sérgio Cabral to a maximum-security federal prison in Mato Grosso do Sul.

   Much less so with the silence of the press, politicians, lawyers, judges, in short, all those who should be outraged, but consider the fact to be normal.

   It is not.

   This is something akin to exile, something not seen in Brazil since the generals ordered former president Jânio Quadros to spend 120 days "isolated" in duplex 606 of the Hotel Santa Mônica, in the center of Corumbá, in 1968, for criticizing the military regime.

   Cabral will remain – for an unknown period of time – in a six-square-meter cubicle for criticizing a judge.

   This episode sets a very serious precedent: it equates the politicians arrested in Lava Jato to the heads of criminal organizations like the PCC, who have a collection of countless and indescribable homicides and barbarities on their conscience and who command operations from inside their cells. 

   What happened to Cabral could happen to everyone in the same situation from now on. It's an unprecedented setback.

   An absurdity that even the military dictatorship didn't tolerate.

   In the 70s, when civil rights and guarantees were suspended, political crimes were differentiated from common crimes, even though they could be characterized as such.

   A militant who robbed a bank was not judged as a robber but as a political militant, and was not imprisoned with bank robbers, but with political prisoners in another wing of the prison. He did not receive the sentences of a robber, but of a political militant.

   The transformation of politicians into criminals is one of the most tragic consequences of the inquisitorial climate that has taken hold in the country since the trial of Criminal Action 470, known as Mensalão, which reached its peak with Operation Lava Jato.

   A politician is a politician.

   A criminal is a criminal.