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Michelle Bachelet, U.N. Rights Chief, Feels ‘Sorry for Brazil’ Under Jair Bolsonaro

Michelle Bachelet, the United Nations human rights chief, earlier this month in Geneva.Credit...Salvatore Di Nolfi/Keystone, via Associated Press

SANTIAGO, Chile — The United Nations human rights chief, Michelle Bachelet, who came under personal attack this month from Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, says she feels “sorry for Brazil,” according to a Chilean media report published on Sunday.

Mr. Bolsonaro had accused Ms. Bachelet of “meddling” in Brazil’s affairs after she raised concerns about a jump in killings by the Rio de Janeiro police, backtracking on democratic norms and attacks on indigenous communities.

He also took personal aim at Ms. Bachelet, who was formerly Chile’s president, saying the only reason her country didn’t turn into Cuba was “thanks to those who had the courage to put a stop to the left in 1973.”

Mr. Bolsonaro was alluding to the socialist president, Salvador Allende, who was overthrown in a 1973 military coup, as well as to Ms. Bachelet’s father, an air force general who remained loyal to Mr. Allende, and who was imprisoned and tortured, dying in jail.

In La Tercera, a Chilean newspaper, which provided extracts of Ms. Bachelet’s interview with Chilean national television scheduled to broadcast on Sunday evening, she was quoted as saying, “I was asked in a news conference about the situation in Brazil, and we gave the information that we have, which is the number of people who have been killed and the difficulty for civil society to continue doing the things they were doing before.”

Asked specifically about Mr. Bolsonaro’s remarks, she alluded to Brazil’s own military dictatorship between 1964 and 1985, which Mr. Bolsonaro has praised as “glorious.”

“How I take things depends on who is saying them,” Ms. Bachelet said. “So if someone is saying that their country has never been under dictatorship, that there has never been any torture there.” She continued, “Well then let him say that the death of my father by torture ensured that Chile did not become Cuba. The truth is that I feel sorry for Brazil.”

Ms. Bachelet’s office did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 6 of the New York edition with the headline: U.N. Rights Chief Spars With Bolsonaro. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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