{"id":28187,"date":"2016-04-23T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-04-23T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rioonwatch.org\/?p=28187"},"modified":"2016-04-23T11:56:11","modified_gmt":"2016-04-23T14:56:11","slug":"to-the-police-favela-residents-are-trash-says-mare-resident","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=28187","title":{"rendered":"“To the Police, Favela Residents Are Trash” says Mar\u00e9 Resident"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

For the original article by Eliane Trindade\u00a0in Portuguese published by Folha de S\u00e3o Paulo\u00a0<\/em>click<\/em> here<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Marinalva<\/a>“The police<\/a> are not synonymous\u00a0with peace here,” observes Marinalva Flor\u00eancia dos Santos, 54, resident of Complexo da Mar\u00e9<\/a>, the largest favela complex in Rio de Janeiro.<\/p>\n

To understand how best to liaise with police forces and even the army<\/a>, who are commanded by the State to fight the “war on drugs” in the area, she enrolled in the Mar\u00e9 de Direitos\u00a0(Mar\u00e9 Rights) course offered by Redes de Mar\u00e9<\/a>, which develops projects in areas such as education<\/a> and public security<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The organization was founded by Eliana Sousa Silva<\/a>, finalist of the 2015 Social Entrepreneur Award<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“I learned that being a woman was about much more than just being a housewife, being submissive to a husband, demanding that I respect them. I have a right to say no. This body is mine,” says Marinalva.<\/p>\n

With the same pride, she defends the inviolability of her home, demanding a warrant should any police officer wish to enter her house, for example.<\/p>\n

Read the testimonial Marinalva Flor\u00eancia\u00a0gave to Folha de S\u00e3o Paulo<\/em>:<\/h3>\n

In 2013 I started the Mar\u00e9 de Direitos course which is only for women. It was one of the most marvelous things that has ever happened to me.<\/p>\n

I learned that being a woman was about much more than just being a housewife, being submissive to a husband, demanding that I respect them. I have the right to say no. This body is mine.<\/p>\n

My fight in Mar\u00e9 started with\u00a0me because it wasn\u2019t worth fighting for anyone else if I’m not cared for. At this moment in time, my\u00a0fight is against government dictatorship. We are in a democracy but they don\u2019t know this.<\/p>\n

They decided inside the favela\u2013I don\u2019t like the word ‘community,’ it is full of lies, so I say ‘favela’\u2013to take little kids out of their\u00a0elementary\u00a0school\u00a0and put them in a place where there are different drug trafficking factions<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Mar\u00e9<\/a><\/p>\n

Speaking with the school directors, we created a petition to block this from happening. I spoke to the councilman: “Favela residents aren’t\u00a0stupid.\u00a0We\u2019re not idiots. We\u2019re not ignorant. I refuse to accept that my grandson will be taken out of here and into the gates of hell, the Gaza Strip.”<\/p>\n

I\u2019m direct. I think pretty words are for politicians. Politicians come on TV and say, “Good day ladies and gentlemen. Please allow me to come into your homes,” and then start using nouns and adjectives\u00a0that people\u00a0don\u2019t understand.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not fighting just for me. It\u2019s for the right for children to stay in school. It\u2019s a achievement.<\/p>\n

Pacification<\/h3>\n

Where is the\u00a0Pacifying Police Unit (UPP)<\/a> program\u00a0going well? Police is no synonym for peace. It never was and never will be. It is the state’s main power. In the\u00a0South Zone<\/a>\u00a0they come in saying, “With your permission, doctor.”<\/p>\n

The last time they knocked here, they asked: “Who lives here?” I responded, “My neighbors.” I’m sarcastic when I want to be. “Do they work?” I said yes. “Only workers live in this alley. I don\u2019t accept criminals here.”<\/p>\n

And so I asked the officer, “Are you going to come in? If you have a search warrant then feel free. If you don\u2019t, I request that you get one\u00a0and bring it to me please.”<\/p>\n

Because the general warrant for the favela<\/a> cannot include my home. My home is not the favela. The favela does not live in my house.<\/p>\n

I learned to act like this after starting the course. I’ve already had a\u00a0hard time in the favela.<\/p>\n

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

[The police] came up and started beating some guys. I said “Hang on,\u00a0not in my house.” The only thing the officer didn\u2019t call me was Bruna Lombardi<\/a>. The rest you can imagine, he called me.<\/p>\n

I put a poster up on my front door saying “We know our rights.” This already startles the police. “Wow, people in the favela know their rights, yikes.” On the course booklet it says, “Do not come into this house without respecting the legality of the action. In the case of disrespect, call the Military Police Internal Affairs.”<\/p>\n

If you are\u00a0slapped\u00a0in the face by a police officer, would that be it? What officer has been severely punished for breaking into a resident\u2019s home illegally?<\/p>\n

This type of campaign is important so that you know what rights you have, that entering a house without a judicial warrant is illegal. But this doesn\u2019t stop me being afraid because I don\u2019t have faith in Internal Affairs. If I were to make a complaint<\/a>, would anything actually happen?<\/p>\n

The lesser evil<\/h3>\n

The drug trafficker\u00a0is the man\u00a0here. The drug traffic\u00a0doesn\u2019t bother\u00a0you. I\u2019m definitely more afraid of the police. For the police, favela residents are trash. Same goes for politicians as well.<\/p>\n

Police officers earn a pittance and come here to face firepower greater than they have. Back in the day, the drug traffickers\u00a0had machine guns and the police had revolvers. It has gotten a bit better now.<\/p>\n

You need to pay police well, train them well, teaching them<\/a> that it can\u2019t be “when you approach people on the asphalt or formal city it\u2019s one way yet in the favela it\u2019s another.” Neither is thinking that the son of a rich guy smoking cannabis is unwell yet here in the favela the guy is addicted.<\/p>\n

The army occupied Mar\u00e9<\/a> just so the government could spend a lot of\u00a0money and have a justification: “We are spending it on public security.” The army came because of the World Cup<\/a> and the Olympics<\/a>. They didn\u2019t come to protect us here.<\/p>\n

Pity the green parakeets [soldiers]. They’ve been trampled on here. They have no firepower. Residents start throwing\u00a0bottles at the army, they cannot do anything, they can\u2019t shoot you. No one does that with the Military or Federal Police.<\/p>\n

The system is totally wrong.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas For the original article by Eliane Trindade\u00a0in Portuguese published by Folha de S\u00e3o Paulo\u00a0click here. “The police are not synonymous\u00a0with peace here,” observes Marinalva Flor\u00eancia dos Santos, 54, resident of Complexo […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":10092,"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":[1736,1277,1328,1331,335,1330,336],"tags":[1162,280,125,397,25,918,37,5,17,888,558,809,1555,837,1019,453,167],"writer":[2003],"translator":[1344],"illustrator":[],"photographer":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-28187","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-1736","8":"category-uppwatch","9":"category-by-community-contributors","10":"category-opinion-2","11":"category-policies","12":"category-translation","13":"category-violations","14":"tag-army-occupation","15":"tag-complexo-da-mare","16":"tag-drug-traffic","17":"tag-education","18":"tag-human-rights","19":"tag-military-police","20":"tag-north-zone","21":"tag-olympics","22":"tag-police-brutality","23":"tag-police-intimidation","24":"tag-prejudice","25":"tag-public-security","26":"tag-redes-de-desenvolvimento-da-mare","27":"tag-resident-account","28":"tag-right-to-education","29":"tag-stigma","30":"tag-world-cup","31":"writer-eliane-trindade","32":"translator-cara-pears"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28187","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=28187"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28187\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28187"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fwriter&post=28187"},{"taxonomy":"translator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftranslator&post=28187"},{"taxonomy":"illustrator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fillustrator&post=28187"},{"taxonomy":"photographer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fphotographer&post=28187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}