On January 17, Guilherme Boulos, national coordinator of Brazil’s Homeless Workers Movement (MTST), was arrested as he tried to negotiate with police as they violently evicted seven hundred families from an area that had sat empty for forty years. His arrest reopened debate over the country’s ongoing criminalization of social movements.

While high-profile leaders like Boulos are less likely to face arrest and prosecution than rank-and-file militants, it has happened before. The MST, still the largest social movement in Brazil, has experienced criminalization over the years that has intensified since Michel Temer assumed the presidency.

Some speculate that this is because he has an illegitimate mandate and his right-wing support has carried a strong wave of anti-leftist sentiment with it. But Boulos arrest was authorized by laws that predate Temer. A local law concerning “criminal organizations” dates back to 2013, and Dilma Rousseff ratified a new antiterrorism law shortly before her impeachment last year, despite warnings from social movements that it would criminalize dissent.