{"id":16651,"date":"2014-07-15T13:00:32","date_gmt":"2014-07-15T16:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rioonwatch.org\/?p=16651"},"modified":"2015-12-23T22:05:25","modified_gmt":"2015-12-24T01:05:25","slug":"world-cup-final-protest-met-with-disproportionate-use-of-force-arrests-police-brutality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=16651","title":{"rendered":"World Cup Final Protest Met with Severely Disproportionate Force, Arrests & Police Brutality"},"content":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas\"\"<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

On the afternoon of the 2014 World Cup final, as Rio\u2019s Maracan\u00e3 stadium<\/a> filled with soccer\u00a0fans, demonstrators congregated just 2km away in the Saens Pe\u00f1a square, in Tijuca, North Zone, regrouping after a peaceful morning march<\/a> from the nearby Pra\u00e7a Afonso Pena. The demonstration brought together 500-1000 protesters, from favela residents and community groups to left-wing political party members and activists. Many sported Copa Pra Quem?<\/a><\/em> (World Cup for Whom?) stickers, and people carried signs making a range of demands, from the\u00a0end to the Military Police <\/a>to a guarantee of the right to peaceful protest<\/a> to comprehensive health<\/a> and education<\/a> reform.<\/p>\n

While the Ministry of Sports’ official figure is $11.6 billion, recent estimates put the World Cup\u2019s total cost closer to $15-20 billion<\/a>, making it by far the most expensive World Cup<\/a> to date. There is widespread discontent over\u00a0the government’s allocation of funds, pouring money into stadiums and infrastructure projects–of which, 18% remain unfinished–while neglecting serious\u00a0problems with sanitation, resource-starved hospitals, and floundering schools. In addition to these concerns, protesters voiced their opposition to forced evictions<\/a> and the use of police violence<\/a>, both against protesters and favela residents. One banner read “Free Those Arrested on Political Grounds, Dictatorship Never Again.”<\/p>\n

On Saturday July 12, the day before the World Cup final and planned protest, police issued 60\u00a0warrants for temporary detention and made 21 arrests<\/a> of activists on grounds of suspected vandalism and gang activity. The Brazilian Bar\u00a0Association (OAB) asserts that the arrests were unconstitutional, interfering with the right to peaceful demonstration. Indeed, the risks\u00a0of protesting have\u00a0gotten too high for many. Recent protests have seen increasing police violence\u2013including the use of live ammunition<\/a>\u2013as well as arrests made without reasonable cause.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The Brazilian government spent\u00a0US$1 billion on security for the World Cup. A total of 170,000<\/a> law enforcement, military, and private security personnel were deployed across Brazil during the tournament, backed up by an additional 10,000 members of the Shock riot police battalion. On the day of the World Cup final, there were\u00a026,000 security personnel in Rio\u2013a third of the Maracan\u00e3 stadium\u2019s total capacity.<\/p>\n

Several hundred officers, most in full riot gear, were stationed all around the square. Apart from surrounding and searching a few protesters, they kept a distance, allowing demonstrators to circulate freely. However, large armored vans, rows of camouflage-print motorbikes, rows of police shields, and a mounted cavalry division blocked off different streets, with the greatest number of police stationed along the roads headed towards the Maracan\u00e3.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

One protester held a sign shaped like a tombstone, with \u201cRIP Human Rights\u201d and an unsettling list of statistics: 5 people killed by Brazilian police per day, 250,000 people evicted<\/a> from their homes for World Cup preparations, 10 worker deaths during stadium construction. A man wearing only a speedo and a garbage-bag cape carried a large cut-out of Brazil, filled in with the words \u201cDragged, Tricked, Repressed, Disappeared, Stolen, Killed\u201d in red paint.<\/p>\n

Residents from various favelas formed a loose semi-circle in one part of the square and took turns with a megaphone. They held a large banner with \u201cThe party in the stadiums is not worth the tears shed in the favelas\u201d scrawled across, the same message of a June 23 protest<\/a>\u00a0along Copacabana beach. Residents focused on the effects of police violence, the Pacifying Police Units (UPPs)<\/a>\u00a0and the current army\u00a0occupation in Mar\u00e9<\/a>. Representatives from\u00a0Mar\u00e9<\/a>, Rocinha<\/a>, Complexo do Alem\u00e3o<\/a>\u00a0and more\u00a0spoke over the crowd\u2019s clapped funk<\/a> beat, voicing their frustration with government policy that has used the World Cup to compromise and even negate their rights<\/a>.\u00a0Gizele Martins, a journalist and activist from Mar\u00e9, spoke first:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have the right to housing, the right to a life. The World Cup destroyed and ended many lives with policies that target poor, black favela residents. Amarildo was just one case, but innumerable others are exterminated in the favelas. We are tired of tears of blood. We are tired of wiping up the bloodied ground.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Amarildo de Souza<\/a>, a bricklayer from\u00a0Rocinha, was killed by UPP forces a year ago, on July 14, 2013. The case became an international scandal, and 12 officers underwent investigation for kidnapping, torture, murder, sequestration of the body, fraud, corruption, and false testimony. Last week, on July 7, a Military Police inquiry<\/a> concluded that Major Edson dos Santos, ex-commander of Rocinha\u2019s UPP, was not guilty, implicating three lower-ranking officers instead. Evidence of Major dos Santos\u2019 role in Amarildo\u2019s murder means that the decision will pass through internal investigation, however Rio\u2019s long tradition of police impunity<\/a>\u00a0could once again block the course of justice.\u00a0UPP officers have killed at least 30\u00a0people; the actual number is unknown, but likely higher.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The megaphone continued to change hands, with several people leading the crowd in politically-charged funk songs. Lidi from the feminist funk group PaguFunk<\/a> performed\u00a0\u00a0a chant of\u00a0MC Serginho’s ‘Era\u00a0S\u00f3 Mais Um Silva<\/em><\/a>‘ (He Was Just Another Silva), making reference to the police killing\u00a0of dancer DG Silva<\/a>\u00a0in Pav\u00e3o-Pav\u00e3ozinho\u00a0this past April. A Rocinha resident sang about the World Cup legacy: \u201cIt\u2019s the Cup of the business men, and the legacy of the Cup? Repression, privatization, it\u2019s not for the favela residents.\u201d<\/p>\n

The testimonies were cut off as the protest started to move. Demonstrators began spilling into the street and starting off in the direction of the Maracan\u00e3 stadium. Triple rows of riot police flanked the protest on either side with side streets barricaded by cavalry and military police. After walking two blocks, the protest hit a wall\u2013armored vehicles and rows of police shields sealed off the road ahead. Protesters were forced to make a U-turn and head back towards Saens Pe\u00f1a.<\/p>\n

Using the controversial kettling<\/a> technique to physically constrain the limits of a demonstration, police then surrounded\u00a0protestors\u00a0on all four sides. Tension began to mount, and the protest split as a few demonstrators towards the back were abruptly surrounded by police and arrested. The protest continued the way it had come, but on\u00a0reaching the Saens Pe\u00f1a square, things turned violent. A flash bomb went off near the front, sending a plume of blue-gray smoke into the air. As three more exploded, panic erupted. NPR nicely documented<\/a> the shift in sound from upbeat samba, to chanting, to gunfire and the use of disproportionate and arbitrary force.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Security forces fired a\u00a0combination of stun grenades, tear gas, pepper spray, and rubber bullets and\u00a0blocked all escape routes from the Saens Pe\u00f1a square. People\u00a0ran only to encounter additional tear gas\u00a0bombs placed at intervals around the square, spewing blue and green smoke. Demonstrators rushed\u00a0to the metro entrance in the square, trying to escape the gas, as police were closing the gate. According to protester Anna Baptista Marim, who posted a video<\/a> of the scene in the metro, \u201c[the police] assaulted a lot of people who were trying to get into the station before the gate was closed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those who did not get to the metro in time were trapped in the square, with protesters as well as residents unable to get past police barricades, including a mother trying to get to her daughter’s birthday and a pregnant woman. The remaining demonstrators\u00a0faced another round of tear gas and smoke bombs as well as reported beatings with police batons. While protesters were outnumbered by security forces by at least 2:1 at the beginning of the protest, by the end, the ratio was closer to 5:1. By 4:25pm the police declared the protest over.<\/p>\n

According to the Rio Journalists’ Union, fifteen reporters\u00a0were injured<\/a>, including three foreigners. At least two were injured by grenade shards, and a girl was hospitalized after being tear gassed.\u00a0The potency\u00a0and color of the tear gas used have led some to speculate\u00a0as to whether such aggressive weaponry is\u00a0at all safe or recommended for use in civilian contexts.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

While protests in June 2013<\/a>\u00a0rocked the country, as millions of Brazilians\u00a0took to the streets, recent protests have been tiny in comparison. FIFA President Sepp Blatter recently asked the rhetorical question, “Where is all this social unrest?”<\/a>\u00a0during a July 3 speech. The police’s punitive, undemocratic response to peaceful protest\u00a0with disproportionate use of force, coupled with a heavy-handed media criminalization of protesters over the last year, have been successful<\/a> in deterring the majority of those who protested last year. Yet the demonstrations\u00a0have continued, met with increasing police brutality<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In response to the weekend’s\u00a0arrests and police violence–which have caused widespread outrage and furious\u00a0commentary on social networks–Amnesty International Brazil has\u00a0called for an investigation<\/a> into the police abuses. Director of Amnesty International Brazil, Atila Roque, said:\u00a0\u201cThe arrests on Saturday and the way the police behaved on Sunday, violently repressing a small protest near Maracan\u00e3 stadium, were a clear attempt to intimidate protesters.The violence meted out by the security forces over the course of the World Cup was excessive, unnecessary and a direct threat to the right to peaceful protest.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas On the afternoon of the 2014 World Cup final, as Rio\u2019s Maracan\u00e3 stadium filled with soccer\u00a0fans, demonstrators congregated just 2km away in the Saens Pe\u00f1a square, in Tijuca, North Zone, regrouping […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":53,"featured_media":16786,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1288,1333,336,1329],"tags":[944,1162,280,32,25,1259,918,37,15,152,17,888,18,809,12,1350,167],"writer":[1318],"translator":[],"illustrator":[],"photographer":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-16651","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-highlight","8":"category-event-reports","9":"category-violations","10":"category-by-international-observers","11":"tag-cadeamarildo","12":"tag-army-occupation","13":"tag-complexo-da-mare","14":"tag-complexo-do-alemao","15":"tag-human-rights","16":"tag-mega-events","17":"tag-military-police","18":"tag-north-zone","19":"tag-pacifying-police-unit","20":"tag-participation","21":"tag-police-brutality","22":"tag-police-intimidation","23":"tag-protest","24":"tag-public-security","25":"tag-rocinha","26":"tag-tijuca","27":"tag-world-cup","28":"writer-elena-hodges"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16651","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/53"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16651"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16651\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16786"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16651"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fwriter&post=16651"},{"taxonomy":"translator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftranslator&post=16651"},{"taxonomy":"illustrator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fillustrator&post=16651"},{"taxonomy":"photographer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fphotographer&post=16651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}