When Brazil’s former president and Workers Party (PT) leader Lula was arrested on April 7, it was mostly based on evidence, presented by the media-star judge Sergio Moro, that he had allegedly received a triplex apartment in exchange for favoring certain public contracts. Around a week after his arrest, the apartment was occupied by the Homeless Workers Movement (MTST), Latin America’s largest working-class movement for housing rights.

All MTST had to do was sever the few wires connected to the building’s electromagnetic lock. Five minutes later, flags from the housing movement and allied organizations were flying from the balcony. The group has undertaken many occupations in order to push housing demands, but this one was unique. Back in January, Lula had tweeted that if the apartment really belonged to him as prosecutors claimed, then perhaps Guilherme Boulos, MTST’s national coordinator, should organize to occupy it. He was reiterating the request he made personally at an urban occupation last year.

The MTST’s occupation, then, constituted a clever form of political theater. Since Lula had publicly invited them to enter it, if it was really his, their actions would have been perfectly legal. And the police’s eventual eviction of the activists meant an implicit admission that Lula did not have rights to the property. “If it’s Lula’s, it’s ours!” read the movement’s banners; “If it’s not, then why is Lula jailed?”