Several thousand people took to the streets of Brazil's biggest cities Sunday to remember the victims of the country's military dictatorship that came to power in a 1964 military coup.

Around 2,000 people gathered in Rio de Janeiro and several hundred rallied in Sao Paulo. Many also demonstrated against commemorations of the coup and far-right President Jair Bolsonaro.

Bolsonaro sparked outrage recently after he ordered the military to "appropriately" commemorate the event, which he does not consider a coup.

Read more: Opinion: Jair Bolsonaro celebrates Brazil's dictatorship

The coup saw generals oust then-President Joao Goulart and install a military dictatorship for 21 years. More than 430 people were killed or disappeared during the period.

Bolsonaro, a former army captain, has described the military junta as "glorious" and been quoted as saying that "the error of the dictatorship was that it tortured but did not kill."

"Celebrating torture, killings and repression, as Jair Bolsonaro suggests, is an attack on democracy and those who have given their lives for it," the head of the opposition Workers' Party, Gleisi Hoffmann, wrote on Twitter.

amp/se (dpa, AP)

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