{"id":24313,"date":"2015-09-21T09:30:26","date_gmt":"2015-09-21T12:30:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rioonwatch.org\/?p=24313"},"modified":"2015-09-29T11:32:40","modified_gmt":"2015-09-29T14:32:40","slug":"cristian-andrade-or-aylan-kurdi-children-die-and-communities-react","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=24313","title":{"rendered":"Cristian Andrade or Aylan Kurdi? Children Die and Communities React"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Police brutality<\/a> in Rio\u2019s favelas triggered a new wave of outrage on social media this month. On September 8 at 11:30am a police raid in\u00a0Manguinhos<\/a>, in the North Zone<\/a> of the city, carried out by the Civil Police\u2019s Special Operations Unit (CORE) and Homicide Division (DH), resulted in the death of 13-year-old Cristian Soares Andrade<\/a> who was playing soccer\u00a0in a nearby field.<\/p>\n

The operation was an attempt to arrest the four men suspected of killing Clayton Fagner Alves Dias, an officer with Manguinhos\u2019 Pacifying Police Unit (UPP)<\/a>, on April 28.<\/p>\n

A graphic video<\/a>\u00a0showing Cristian\u2019s body lying next to the community\u2019s soccer field was immediately uploaded on the Internet, where it has received almost 50,000 shares.<\/p>\n

As reported by the Manguinhos Social Forum<\/a> community page, residents rushed to the site after hearing the shooting \u201cin order to protect Cristian\u2019s body and dignity, knowing too well how the Rio police acts.\u201d This refers to the various documented cases of police altering crime scenes, for example\u00a0placing guns next to victims’ bodies. According to Amnesty International Brazil<\/a>, police tried to carry the boy\u2019s body to their armored vehicle before residents\u2019 intervention.<\/p>\n

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

Manguinhos residents expressed their rage over Cristian’s murder\u2013the most recent police killing of a young black male in the community<\/a>\u2013on social media.<\/p>\n

\u201cRegardless of the post mortem report, which will reveal from where and whom the bullet was shot, the incapacity of the State to fulfill its duty to serve and protect is once again evident and documented. It is inconceivable, under any circumstance, that an action carried out by public authorities should result in the death of a member of civil society. Is this war against children now?\u201d wrote one resident on Facebook<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Amnesty International Brazil condemned<\/a> the \u201cunnecessary and irresponsible\u201d use of force and weapons by the police and called for an urgent investigation: \u201cOnce again a child died as a result of the war logic that characterizes Brazil\u2019s public security policy.\u201d A report published by the organization<\/a> last month shows that Brazil’s police force is the most lethal in the world, with 15.6% of all homicides in the country committed by police. In Rio de Janeiro, 99.5% of the victims of police violence between 2010 and 2013 were males, almost 80% black and 75% between 15 and 29 years old.<\/p>\n

One powerful condemnation of the killing came from the collective Occupy Alem\u00e3o<\/a>, which addressed inequality, injustice and the historic and deeply entrenched racism<\/a> of Brazilian society.\u00a0\u201cA black body on the ground as usual, more than 500 years after the invasion of the European demon. And the question is always the same: was he \u2018involved\u2019 (in crime)? How can you not be ‘involved’ if they took your land, kidnapped you and left you in poverty?\u201d wrote the collective on its Facebook page<\/a>. \u201cThe real \u2018involved\u2019 ones never have to pay. On the contrary, they get the best opportunities, eat the best food, sleep in the best beds. Where is Eike Batista\u2019s son after killing a cyclist<\/a>? The blond devil is on the loose. And our brothers? Our brothers are all in jail\u201d.<\/p>\n

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

On the same day as Cristian\u2019s death, the Military Police\u2019s Special Operations Unit (BOPE<\/a>) carried out operations in Nova Holanda<\/a>, a favela in\u00a0Complexo da Mar\u00e9<\/a>. Local NGO Redes da Mar\u00e9<\/a> released a note<\/a> reporting intense shooting between police and criminal groups, which forced many residents to lock themselves in their homes or find shelter in shops, churches and bars. Classes were suspended<\/a> at the Educand\u00e1rio Sena Santos school in Parque Uni\u00e3o<\/a> and it was reported that a woman and a policeman were wounded during the shootouts.<\/p>\n

Local organizations Redes da Mar\u00e9 and Observat\u00f3rio de Favelas<\/a> strongly condemned<\/a> the police operation: \u201cOnce again the logic of war on drugs at any cost, which assumes favelas are enemy territories and civillian ‘casualties’ are acceptable, has prevailed. It is certainly not with this attitude that the State will guarantee peace and build a common sovereignty for all residents. On the contrary, in admitting that there are ‘territories of exception’ where, under the excuse of enforcing the law, residents’ lives are seen as less valuable, the State ends up endorsing police actions that may turn into real tragedies.\u201d<\/p>\n

Violent police operations are routinely carried out in Rio’s favelas and young black lives are lost with alarming frequency, yet the tragedies rarely spark widespread outrage in the media or amongst wider society.<\/p>\n

The photo of three-year-old Aylan Kurdi lying lifeless on a Turkish shore after fleeing the Syrian civil war shocked people around the world–including Brazilians of all backgrounds–and drew global attention to Europe\u2019s migrant crisis. However, children and youth killed in Brazil do not seem to trigger the same empathy among the country\u2019s population.<\/p>\n

Rene Silva, founder of community newspaper Voz das Comunidades<\/a>, shared an illustration depicting Cristian\u2019s body next to Aylan\u2019s<\/a> on his Facebook profile and in a different post<\/a> wrote: “I can’t understand how we have different emotional reactions to (different) deaths and violence in the world. Last week, a boy washed up dead on a beach in Turkey and this image has been seen everywhere. Yesterday, a 13 year-old-boy was killed in Manguinhos and few newspapers highlighted it or are even talking about it. I often find myself staring into space and thinking how hypocritical we are, saying that the biggest problems are on the other side of the world, when we don\u2019t even want to look at what’s happening right under our own noses.”<\/p>\n

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

This contradiction motivated a protest against police killings on September 10. Publicized as a Facebook event called \u201cIndignation against the homicides of black children in Brazil<\/a>,\u201d the demonstration gathered around 300 people in front of Rio\u2019s central train station. Many favela-based groups attended, including Coletivo Papo Reto<\/a> which over the last month has organized a series of cultural events under the title ‘Everything Is Wrong’<\/a> to protest police violence in Complexo do Alem\u00e3o<\/a>.<\/p>\n

On September 15, a demonstration was held in Manguinhos just a few hundred meters from where Cristian was killed. More than 300 residents and activists celebrated\u00a0Cristian\u2019s life\u00a0and spoke out against State brutality against favela residents. The crowd was touched by the words of Irone Santiago<\/a>, whose 19-year-old son was killed last year in Mar\u00e9, and of other direct or indirect victims of this perpetual state of violence and fear.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas Police brutality in Rio\u2019s favelas triggered a new wave of outrage on social media this month. On September 8 at 11:30am a police raid in\u00a0Manguinhos, in the North Zone of the […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":24327,"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":[1294,1277,1288,1290,336,1329],"tags":[1087,1606,280,844,25,203,878,637,918,37,281,523,964,15,362,17,18,809,1189,30],"writer":[1806],"translator":[],"illustrator":[],"photographer":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-24313","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-communitymedia","8":"category-uppwatch","9":"category-highlight","10":"category-civilsociety","11":"category-violations","12":"category-by-international-observers","13":"tag-voicesfromsocialmedia","14":"tag-coletivo-papo-reto","15":"tag-complexo-da-mare","16":"tag-forum-de-manguinhos","17":"tag-human-rights","18":"tag-inequality","19":"tag-international-comparison","20":"tag-manguinhos","21":"tag-military-police","22":"tag-north-zone","23":"tag-nova-holanda","24":"tag-observatorio-de-favelas","25":"tag-occupy-alemao","26":"tag-pacifying-police-unit","27":"tag-parque-uniao","28":"tag-police-brutality","29":"tag-protest","30":"tag-public-security","31":"tag-racism","32":"tag-urban-violence","33":"writer-federico-olivieri"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24313","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\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24313"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24313\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/24327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24313"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fwriter&post=24313"},{"taxonomy":"translator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftranslator&post=24313"},{"taxonomy":"illustrator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fillustrator&post=24313"},{"taxonomy":"photographer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fphotographer&post=24313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}