Márcio Moreira Alves (1936-2009) was a Brazilian politician. Although he was an opponent of João Goulart’s government and he initially supported the 1964 military coup, he later began to speak out against the military regime and the use of torture after the enactment of Institutional Act No. 1.

Moreira Alves is best known as being a motivator for the infamous Institutional Act No. 5 (AI-5). Against the backdrop of rising student protests and violent police responses in 1968, Moreira gave a speech to Congress where he called for Brazilians to boycott Independence Day celebrations, as well as for girls to not “dance with the cadets and date the young officers.” Click here to listen to Moreira Alves’ speech. The speech created a controversy within the military regime, and shortly thereafter Congress received a formal request to take away Moreira Alves’ parliamentary immunity so he could be sued for offending the military. Congress voted against revoking his immunity, and the government announced AI-5 the following day. Known as being the harshest Institutional Act, AI-5 allowed the regime to shut down Congress, suspend habeas corpus for politically motivated crimes, and strip anyone of their political rights for up to ten years.

After the passage of AI-5, Moreira Alves was expelled from Congress and he left Brazil to exile in Chile. He later moved to Paris in 1971, and Lisbon in 1974, where he stayed until the 1979 Amnesty Law for political exiles, which allowed him to return to Brazil.