{"id":26409,"date":"2016-01-21T08:00:02","date_gmt":"2016-01-21T11:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rioonwatch.org\/?p=26409"},"modified":"2016-01-21T01:45:53","modified_gmt":"2016-01-21T04:45:53","slug":"alemao-community-newspaper-asks-2015-a-year-to-forget","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=26409","title":{"rendered":"Alem\u00e3o Community Newspaper Asks “2015…A Year To Forget?”"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

For the original article in Portuguese by Betinho Casas Novas\u00a0published in Voz das Comunidades\u00a0click here<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Like 2014, 2015 began\u00a0violently, with people killed, shot, and injured. The hope that residents of Complexo do Alem\u00e3o<\/a> had for the year 2015 was of a calm, prosperous, and peaceful change, considering the violent year<\/a> that had preceded it. But the first months of 2015 showed\u00a0that residents have\u00a0to, increasingly, live with and resist all the violence and the problems in the community. Instead of a New Year\u2019s Eve with shouts of \u201cpeace,\u201d \u201cprosperity,\u201d \u201chealth,\u201d and \u201clove,\u201d the words \u201cjustice,\u201d \u201cout with the UPP,\u201d \u201cenough,\u201d and \u201cpeace in Alem\u00e3o\u201d were heard.<\/p>\n

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

On March 19, yet another victim of a stray bullet shocked the entire community. Vanessa dos Santos Abcassis<\/a>, 38, was shot on her doorstep\u00a0while talking to a neighbor. The shot came after a gunfight in the Central\u00a0community at the top of Alem\u00e3o, hitting her thigh near her abdomen. Vanessa was taken to the Emergency Medical Unit (UPA), but was already dead. Vanessa\u2019s family was shocked\u00a0and vented in protest on social networks.<\/p>\n

Over\u00a0the following month, two more deaths outraged residents of Alem\u00e3o and of Brazil: a woman and a child aged only 10 years old. Elizabeth Moura<\/a>, 41, was with her family at home, sitting on her couch in the living room, when she was hit in the neck by a bullet. When the shot was fired, an intense shootout was taking place in the area. Aside from Elizabeth, another person was hit. The victim was her daughter, Maynara Moura, 14 years old, injured in the arm next to her mother. Mother and daughter were taken by residents to the nearest emergency room. Maynara was treated and discharged\u00a0shortly after, but her mother did not survive and died at the hospital.<\/p>\n

\"Elizabeth<\/a>
Elizabeth Moura, 41, was with her family at home, sitting on her couch, when she was hit in the neck by a bullet.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The day after Elizabeth\u2019s death, the Rio de Janeiro Civil Police carried out an operation to reconstruct\u00a0the accident at the location where the woman and her daughter were hit. The operation took an entire day. That night images circulated on social networks showing yet another victim of a stray bullet. This time it was a child who was only 10 years old. \u201cMurderer, murderer!\u201d cried the residents in a video shared by over\u00a0a thousand people within the hour.<\/p>\n

Eduardo de Jesus Ferreira<\/a> was hit in the head by a bullet while waiting at the door of his home for his sister to arrive from work. In a matter of minutes, images of the dead boy circulated across the world.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe minute my son left to go to the front door, those bastards\u00a0[referring to the Military Police] killed my son\u2026\u201d, the boy\u2019s mother, Tereza Maria de Jesus<\/a>, said in anger. Our team (at\u00a0Jornal Voz das Comunidades<\/a>)\u00a0was one of the few to cover Eduardo’s death<\/a> on the spot in real time. The team arrived an hour after the boy\u2019s death after being called in by residents. The same night, around 200 residents held\u00a0a symbolic protest at the entrance of the community with candles, shouts for justice, and banners.<\/p>\n

\"Tereza<\/a>
Tereza Maria de Jesus holds a photo of her son, Eduardo, killed by police in March 2015. Photo by Renato Moura<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Three days after this sad incident, around 1,000\u00a0residents took to the streets of Alem\u00e3o in protest over the deaths<\/a>. With banners, flags and white sheets, residents marched\u00a0through the whole community. In the lower part of Alem\u00e3o, the Military Police<\/a> clashed with protestors, dispersing the crowd with flash bombs and tear gas. Around five people ended up at the Emergency Medical Unit at Alem\u00e3o, injured in the confusion and hit by rubber bullets and shrapnel from bombs thrown by the police.<\/p>\n

\"Actor<\/a>
Actor Paulo Betti was also at the protest at Complexo do Alem\u00e3o. Around 1,000 people gathered at Pra\u00e7a de Inha\u00fama. Photo by resident\/via WhatsApp<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

An act for peace<\/a>\u00a0organized by an activist group from Alem\u00e3o was held a week after Eduardo’s death. This time, to avoid a possible confrontation with the police, the act was organized with sound cars, shirts, banners, and cultural interventions, in addition to the presence of celebrities and the national and international press. Around 2,000\u00a0people participated in the march, which started at the Grota community and ended at\u00a0Pra\u00e7a de Inha\u00fama. The police monitored everything up close.<\/p>\n

The death of the boy Eduardo triggered the outrage of residents of Alem\u00e3o, which was broadcast on news networks<\/a> across the globe under the title \u201cWar in Alem\u00e3o\u201d or even \u201cChaos in Rio.\u201d Within a short period of time, the Rio state government, represented by Governor Pez\u00e3o<\/a>, assumed the state\u2019s culpability\u00a0for the deaths of Eduardo and Elizabeth Moura. However, the agents involved in Eduardo’s death haven’t been\u00a0charged<\/a>\u00a0for the killing, seven months after the incident.<\/p>\n

A survey carried out by Voz das Comunidades<\/em> showed that in 2015, 44 people were hit in shootouts in Complexo do Alem\u00e3o. Of these, 22 died. This exceeds the numbers from 2014, when 27 people were hit, with 14 deaths. The year 2015 was\u00a0the most violent since the occupation in 2010<\/a> by military forces.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas For the original article in Portuguese by Betinho Casas Novas\u00a0published in Voz das Comunidades\u00a0click here.\u00a0 Like 2014, 2015 began\u00a0violently, with people killed, shot, and injured. The hope that residents of Complexo […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":26410,"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":[1294,1277,1328,1330,336],"tags":[1606,1653,32,1343,918,37,15,17,18,270,268,30,1385,1843],"writer":[1589],"translator":[338],"illustrator":[],"photographer":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-26409","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-communitymedia","8":"category-uppwatch","9":"category-by-community-contributors","10":"category-translation","11":"category-violations","12":"tag-coletivo-papo-reto","13":"tag-community-media","14":"tag-complexo-do-alemao","15":"tag-governor-pezao","16":"tag-military-police","17":"tag-north-zone","18":"tag-pacifying-police-unit","19":"tag-police-brutality","20":"tag-protest","21":"tag-resistance","22":"tag-state-violence","23":"tag-urban-violence","24":"tag-violence","25":"tag-voz-das-comunidades","26":"writer-betinho-casas-novas","27":"translator-carolyn-oliveira"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26409","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\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26409"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26409\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/26410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26409"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fwriter&post=26409"},{"taxonomy":"translator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftranslator&post=26409"},{"taxonomy":"illustrator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fillustrator&post=26409"},{"taxonomy":"photographer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fphotographer&post=26409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}