{"id":40117,"date":"2017-11-18T13:02:17","date_gmt":"2017-11-18T16:02:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rioonwatch.org\/?p=40117"},"modified":"2017-11-20T13:06:08","modified_gmt":"2017-11-20T16:06:08","slug":"the-persecuted-faiths","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=40117","title":{"rendered":"The Persecuted Faiths"},"content":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Por<\/strong>tugu\u00eas<\/strong><\/strong><\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

For the original article in Portuguese by Gabriele Roza published by investigative news agency Ag\u00eancia P\u00fablica click\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Hate crimes against practitioners of Umbanda<\/a> and Candombl\u00e9<\/a> in Rio de Janeiro represent 90% of the cases called into the state of Rio’s public complaints hotline<\/span><\/span>; nationwide, reported cases of religious discrimination increased 4960% in 5 years.\u00a0<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/h4>\n

[For historical context on the current discrimination facing Afro-Brazilian religions, don’t miss the section entitled “A past that returns” at the end of this story.*]<\/h4>\n

Mother\u00a0Merinha\u00a0was very fast, she tied a white cloth to her clothes, and slipped some necklaces made of\u00a0colored beads around her neck. “The saddest part of all this is knowing they do not stop,” she said, as she tied another\u00a0white\u00a0cloth\u00a0around her head.\u00a0She was ready, in her\u00a0m\u00e3e-de-santo<\/a><\/em>\u00a0priestess dress. She signaled that we could begin the interview and introduced herself: ”I am Mother\u00a0Merinha\u00a0de\u00a0Oxum, I was initiated in Candombl\u00e9 36 years ago, I am the daughter of Mima de\u00a0Oxossi, of Il\u00ea\u00a0Ax\u00e9\u00a0Ob\u00e1\u00a0Ketu.” One year and a half ago,\u00a0Rosimere\u00a0Lucia dos Santos opened a Candombl\u00e9\u00a0terreiro<\/em><\/a>, or sacred site, in Belford Roxo<\/a>, a\u00a0municipality in Rio’s metropolitan area, in the Baixada\u00a0Fluminense<\/a>,\u00a0where she also started a social project with children in the region. On Wednesday, September 27 she turned 51, and on that same day her\u00a0terreiro<\/em>\u00a0was invaded and burned.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The neighbors, when they noticed the flames, called Mother\u00a0Merinha’s brother, who lives nearby, to help put out the fire. The fire was controlled before it affected the main building, but the next day, Mother\u00a0Merinha\u00a0noticed that they had set fire in the middle house, where\u00a0the donations, the religious dress, and the\u00a0orix\u00e1s<\/a><\/em>\u00a0were. The criminals also stole a TV, cell phone and radio. The police report was completed a week later, on the second attempt: “The police station was very crowded, I stayed there for about three hours, I was very weak, I was shocked\u00a0by everything that had happened, I was gathering\u00a0strength,\u00a0and then\u00a0returned\u00a0on Thursday.”\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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

They also burned books about\u00a0Afro-Brazilian religions\u00a0and photos of the family’s history\u00a0with\u00a0Candombl\u00e9<\/a>. ”What saddens me most are the\u00a0work\u00a0materials and the photographs. I have a whole history\u00a0with Candombl\u00e9,\u00a0shaped by my mother.” Mother\u00a0Merinha\u00a0is\u00a0a descendant of black and indigenous\u00a0ancestors,\u00a0and\u00a0she inherited\u00a0the\u00a0religion\u00a0from her maternal grandmother who went to Rio de Janeiro to flee from her violent husband in Esp\u00edrito Santo, a bordering state.\u00a0A washerwoman, her grandmother was able to buy a plot of land in Belford Roxo and dedicated part of\u00a0it to\u00a0her daughter’s\u00a0orix\u00e1<\/em>. “I even had some photos of my mother carrying a bundle on her head\u00a0when they arrived in Belford Roxo,” she recalls. “Over the years I brought everything I had\u00a0to this place. It’s a whole life story of the sacred.”\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Mother\u00a0Merinha\u00a0is one of the most recent victims of violence against followers of Afro-Brazilian religions<\/a> in the State of Rio de Janeiro. According to data from the Center for the Promotion of Religious Freedom and Human Rights (Ceplir), of the 52 reports of religious intolerance\u00a0to the\u00a0Ceplir\u2014from December 2016 to August 2017\u201434 were from followers of\u00a0Candombl\u00e9,\u00a0Umbanda<\/a> and other denominations of African religions<\/a> in the State of Rio.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In five years, reports denouncing religious discrimination in Brazil grew 4960%. The number went from 15 in 2011 to 759 in 2016, according to data from Disque\u00a0100<\/a>, a hotline for the Secretary of Human Rights to the President of the Republic (SDH). In 2016, 69 were from Candombl\u00e9\u00a0practitioners\u00a0(9.09%), 74 from Umbanda\u00a0practitioners\u00a0(9.75%) and 33 from followers of what were broadly described as “religions with African roots” (4.35%), totaling 23.19%.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

According to a Pew Foundation report<\/a>, of the world’s most populous countries, Brazil went from being one of the countries with the lowest rates of Social\u00a0Hostility with\u00a0religious motivations, in 2007,\u00a0to having one of the highest rates in 2014, going from second to ninth place in this period.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In August and September of this year, a new wave of attacks on Candombl\u00e9 and Umbanda\u00a0terreiros<\/em><\/a>\u00a0in the Baixada\u00a0Fluminense showed that religion-based hate crimes are growing in the state that has, for the first time, an evangelical bishop governing its capital\u2014in January, Marcelo\u00a0Crivella<\/a>\u00a0(PRB Party), bishop of\u00a0the\u00a0Universal Church of the Kingdom of God<\/a>,\u00a0became the mayor of\u00a0Rio de Janeiro.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In response to the violence, the State Human Rights Secretariat (SEDHMI) launched the\u00a0Fight\u00a0Against Prejudice\u00a0Hotline<\/a>\u00a0to facilitate complaints.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In August and October, 43 complaints were filed: one from a Kardecist\u00a0spiritist<\/a>, one from an evangelical Christian, two from Muslims, and 39 from Umbanda and Candombl\u00e9 practitioners, representing 90% of the total. There were six types of violations identified, including invasion\/attack on religious institutions (11), discrimination\/defamation (10), physical aggression (6), incitement to hatred (6), verbal aggression (6),\u00a0and\u00a0threats (4).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Inquisition by Traffickers in the Baixada<\/h3>\n

Among the complaints against\u00a0practitioners\u00a0of Afro-Brazilian religions, 12 occurred in the Baixada\u00a0Fluminense. The region<\/a> gathers 13\u00a0of Greater Rio’s\u00a0municipalities\u00a0and houses at least 274\u00a0terreiros<\/em>, out of a total of 847 in the state, according to the Mapping of Houses of Afro-Brazilian Religions<\/a>, developed by the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio) with support from the National\u00a0Secretariat\u00a0for the\u00a0Promotion of Racial Equality\u00a0Policies (SEPPIR \/ PR), between 2008 and 2011.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

SEDHMI received four reports of attacks on\u00a0terreiros<\/em>\u00a0carried out by\u00a0drug\u00a0traffickers from August to October, three of them occurring in the Baixada\u00a0Fluminense, two in Nova Igua\u00e7u<\/a> and one in\u00a0Itagua\u00ed<\/a>. According to the secretariat, the four victims reported that\u00a0the local criminal faction had ordered<\/a>\u00a0the prohibition of the practice of religions with African roots in the area dominated by the faction. All those who report cases of religious intolerance are told to\u00a0report\u00a0to\u00a0the local police station, but some victims do not do so out of fear.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In September, the\u00a0terreiro<\/em>\u00a0of the\u00a0priestess Carmen de\u00a0Oxum\u00a0was attacked in Nova Igua\u00e7u. The trafficker, who\u00a0even\u00a0recorded the crime with a cell phone camera, gives orders to destroy the\u00a0sacred\u00a0objects: “Break everything, put out the candles, for the blood of Jesus has power… All evil must be undone in the name of Jesus.” According to the\u00a0General\u00a0Director\u00a0of the Baixada\u00a0Fluminense\u00a0Police,\u00a0S\u00e9rgio\u00a0Caldas, the case is being investigated by the 58th\u00a0Police Precinct (DP)\u00a0and two traffickers of the Third Pure Command (Terceiro\u00a0Comando\u00a0Puro), a criminal faction known to threaten observers of Candombl\u00e9 and Umbanda, have already been identified as\u00a0perpetrators. “This person came from another community to put pressure on the Candombl\u00e9\u00a0terreiros<\/em>,” Caldas said to P\u00fablica<\/em>, adding that conditions “are not favorable” to the investigation. “When it occurs in a community controlled by drug traffickers, the victims\u00a0are\u00a0afraid to expose themselves.”<\/p>\n

Those indicted in this case will be penalized by Law 7.716 of 1989<\/a>, known as the “Ca\u00f3\u00a0Law,” which determines the punishment for crimes resulting from discrimination or prejudice based on race<\/a>, color, ethnicity, religion or national origin, as a non-bailable and imprescriptible\u00a0crime.\u00a0The penalty is two to five years imprisonment.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The\u00a0babala\u00f4<\/em><\/a>\u00a0priest Ivanir\u00a0dos Santos, founder of the March in Defense of Religious Freedom<\/a> and spokesman for the Commission to Combat Religious Intolerance, says that the first incidences of traffickers destroying\u00a0terreiros<\/em>\u00a0happened in the 1990s, in Morro do Urubu, Pilares, in\u00a0Rio’s\u00a0North\u00a0Zone<\/a>. Later, other cases occurred in Morro do\u00a0Dend\u00ea\u00a0(located on Ilha do Governador<\/a>),\u00a0in\u00a0Lins de Vasconcelos and\u00a0Cidade\u00a0Alta<\/a>. “It’s an understandable phenomenon. Any religion that grows will influence some social spheres,” he says.\u00a0Ivanir\u00a0believes that the presence of evangelical churches<\/a> in the prisons of Rio is an influencing factor in the emergence of what he calls “evangelized trafficking.” “The guy is imprisoned there, he becomes an evangelist and he’s going to\u00a0get out\u00a0for good behavior, which reduces his\u00a0sentence…\u00a0After leaving\u00a0prison, not everyone changes\u00a0their\u00a0lives,” he says.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The evangelical churches\u00a0will likely become even more present in the prisons of Rio de Janeiro. In February, the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God signed an agreement with the state government for the construction of temples in penitentiary units<\/a>, funded by the religious institution. The agreement allows\u00a0the\u00a0Universal\u00a0Church\u00a0to build or rebuild ecumenical temples in the state’s 51 prisons, dependent on the authorization of the unit’s director. So far, thanks to the agreement, 15 temples\u00a0have been\u00a0inaugurated or renovated, in the prison complexes of\u00a0Gericin\u00f3, Campos, Resende and\u00a0\u00c1gua\u00a0Santa.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Public Prosecutor for the Prison System and Human Rights of Rio de Janeiro visited the prison units where the religious temples were built to determine the validity of the agreement. According to prosecutor\u00a0Murilo\u00a0Nunes de Bustamante, the spaces are not supposed to\u00a0be\u00a0linked\u00a0to\u00a0a\u00a0specific religion, but their architectural pattern resembles that used by the Universal Church. “Despite the plan that they would be ecumenical and freely used by\u00a0anyone, the inmates themselves would only allow some religions to\u00a0perform\u00a0their worship\u00a0there.” The prosecutor’s investigation has not yet been completed. “The indications follow the sense of the architectural identity of the spaces, which will be discussed with the churches operating in the prison system,” he said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In response to\u00a0P\u00fablica<\/em>, the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God reported that its ‘Universal in Prisons’ (their social program serves 80% of Brazil’s prison population, approximately 500,000 people out of a total of 622,000 inmates according to\u00a0Infopen\u00a0in 2014<\/a>), “offers courses and support to detainees and their families, carrying out a resocialization project that is recognized by the authorities of all the nation’s states, including in the state of Rio de Janeiro.”\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Eight homicides for religious intolerance\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n

The data available in the Report on Intolerance and Religious Violence<\/a>\u00a0by the Special Secretariat for Human Rights detail what religious freedom activists call a “Holy War<\/a>.” The report shows that, between 2011 and 2015, 27% of the complaints made to the country’s ombudsmen were by followers of Afro-Brazilian religions, 16% by evangelicals, 8% by Catholics and 7% by spiritists. Regarding the religion of the aggressors, as reported by the victims, the data indicate that 17% were evangelicals. Catholics appear in second position, but very far away, with 3%, followed by Jehovah’s Witnesses (1%), spiritists\u00a0(1%), and followers of Afro-Brazilian religions (1%). In 73% of the cases, no information on the religion of the aggressor was recorded.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Eight homicides for religious reasons were also identified in the report, according to investigations by the Civil Police or the Public Ministry. Four deaths involved Candombl\u00e9\u00a0leaders in Londrina (PR) and Manaus (AM), and four were deaths within the same evangelical family in\u00a0Itapecerica\u00a0da Serra (SP). All the murders were carried out with knives, and the aggressors and victims knew each other.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Professor\u00a0Jayro\u00a0de Jesus, coordinator of the Ubuntu Free School of Afrocentric Philosophy and Theology<\/a>, explains that Neo-Pentecostals\u00a0understand their faith to bring health, well-being, and material prosperity. Illness, unemployment, and poverty result from “evil” and from a life of sin. “It is the evil that harms others’ lives. And [for them] evil is typified in Afro-Brazilian religions,” he explains. “Neo-Pentecostals now count on the help of the people themselves who find justification for ending the evil that is their neighbor.”\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In the 1980s Jayro de Jesus, a historic figure in the struggle against violence against Afro-Brazilian religions, coordinated the Orix\u00e1s Tradition Project, which visited terreiros<\/em>\u00a0in the Baixada to hear reports of intolerance, and referred them to police stations. “There were 20 young people who went out all over the Baixada. We identified 3,000\u00a0terreiros<\/em>\u00a0with complaints of invasions, name-calling, stoning, bible beatings,” he recalls. “Essentially the persecution came from the Universal Church,” he says.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The reports to the group were consolidated in the “The Fabricated Holy War” dossier and submitted to the federal government in 1989; it was then filed with the Public Prosecutor’s Office. But nothing was done, affirms Uilian\u00a0Portella, the group’s lawyer. “The dossier denounced repeated aggressive attitudes of the Neo-Pentecostal evangelical churches, notably the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God… The followers of Afro-Brazilian traditions were being stoned, and beaten with bibles to ‘expel the devil.'”\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In 2015, the television networks Rede Record<\/a> and Rede\u00a0Mulher\u00a0(purchased by Record)\u2014owned by Edir Macedo, founder and leader of the Universal Church\u2014were sentenced by the federal judiciary to air four television programs to fulfill followers of Afro-Brazilian religions’ right to respond to offensive material against them displayed in the network’s “Mysteries” (Mist\u00e9rios) and the “Exorcism Session” (Sess\u00e3o de Descarrego) programs.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

When contacted by this reporter, the Universal Church claimed that the accusation that its members were persecuting other religious groups in the 1980s is “untruthful.” “The Universal Church of the Kingdom of God defends, without compromise, the freedom of thought, belief and worship, as guaranteed by our federal Constitution.” The Church says that it preaches the contrary. “We encourage our adherents to respect the convictions of other people, because it is precisely the bishops, pastors and millions of supporters of the\u00a0Universal Church who are the main victims of religious prejudice in Brazil,” it said in a written statement.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

”It’s as if they had taken a child”<\/h3>\n

At 10pm on October 4 of this year, Candombl\u00e9 priestess Mother Vivian de Souza was at home in Nova Sepetiba<\/a>, in Rio’s West Zone<\/a>, when she received a call from a neighbor of her\u00a0terreiro<\/em>\u00a0in\u00a0Serop\u00e9dica<\/a>, in the Baixada Fluminense. On the phone, he said that the house of worship had been broken into, and by that time, many images and objects had already been broken. The neighbor passed on the threat that if she did not remove the belongings as quickly as possible, they would destroy everything. Mother Vivian fell into despair. Her terreiro<\/em>\u00a0is an hour away by car.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Almost two years ago, Mother Vivian moved with her family to Nova Sepetiba and transformed her former home in\u00a0Serop\u00e9dica\u00a0into a Candombl\u00e9 house. She did not visit the\u00a0terreiro<\/em>\u00a0on a regular basis, but could stay there for a whole week or just a weekend, “for as long as religious obligations demanded.” When she reached the house, around midnight, she saw the broken-in gate, the\u00a0Orix\u00e1 Bar\u00e1<\/a>\u00a0on the floor, the broken Exus<\/a>. She got a truck to remove what was left. The next day, she rented a house in Sepetiba to begin construction of a new space dedicated to the orix\u00e1s<\/em>. She does not want to go back to her previous home: ”It’s as if they’d taken my child.” Besides the\u00a0orix\u00e1s<\/em>, they destroyed the very structure of the house and other objects, “things that are very valuable to us. A cowrie-shell, a coin is valuable to us. To other people maybe not, but this is very bad,” she said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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

The new house is smaller; symbolic objects were stored in one room, and other objects in a living area, with the atabaque<\/em> drums and mattresses she was able to take with her. “I can’t understand all this hate. It feels as if I am in the time of my ancestors, when we had to hide in the woods, as my grandparents did to continue to practice our religion. I’m trapped, they’re cornering us more and more.”\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Mother Vivian went to the police station in Sepetiba to file a report, but was advised to fill out the police record online or go to the\u00a0Serop\u00e9dica\u00a0police station. “The way they act is like you’re responsible for what’s going on. ‘Why were you not there at the time?’ I’m not the one who has to know who it was.” For her, the police show no interest in conducting an actual investigation.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

With the crisis, the end of the Center for the Promotion of Religious Freedom\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n

Mother Vivian sought help from the Center for the Promotion of Religious Freedom and Human Rights<\/a> (Ceplir) which, from 2012 until this year, assisted the victims of intolerance in the State of Rio with psychological, legal and social assistance.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

However,\u00a0Fl\u00e1via\u00a0Pinto, who was director of the institution until this week, explained to P\u00fablica<\/em>\u00a0<\/b>that the Center stopped receiving resources from the state government in 2016. “With the state’s crisis<\/a>,\u00a0Ceplir\u00a0was scrapped. We were able to get some support from the Palmares Cultural Foundation [of the federal government] and we put\u00a0Ceplir\u00a0to work for another year at the Fluminense Federal University (UFF), but these resources have run out,” she said. “We are making people aware that religious intolerance is a crime. Policies related to religious freedom are still in a very early phase in this country. People still do not have the understanding that being discriminated against due to their religion is a crime.”\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The State Secretary for Human Rights, \u00c1tila\u00a0Alexandre Nunes, rebuts the criticism<\/a>. According to him, the State Secretariat for Protection and Support for Women and the Elderly became the State Secretariat for Human Rights and Policies for Women and Seniors (SEDHMI) and, with the change, the secretariat will incorporate the\u00a0Ceplir\u00a0staff as early as November “so that it is a permanent, consolidated structure that does not rely on third-party resources.” Even so,\u00a0Ceplir\u00a0will not run its services in November, Black Awareness Month<\/a>, according to Fl\u00e1via Pinto. She is now going to work at Rio’s Municipal Human Rights Office.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In August, the Secretary announced that the state will create a police station specialized in the fight against racial crimes and crimes of intolerance, DECRADI, with a group capable of carrying out investigations and assisting victims of hate crimes.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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

These services still have a lot to improve, says\u00a0Fl\u00e1via\u00a0Pinto: “The cases of intolerance are still interpreted by the police as disputes among neighbors, and then the person does not receive the correct care and the data are not generated.”\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Regarding the budget problem, the Secretary believes that the action may unburden the regional police stations that will be able to refer investigations to the specialized police station. “We are talking about a leaner\u00a0structure,\u00a0the Secretariat of Human Rights would make psychosocial counselors available to support and help victims.”\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

“Unfortunately, we are experiencing a new moment in which traffickers are persecuting the\u00a0terreiros<\/em>. The logic now is a territorial logic due to these traffickers,” says the Secretary. Violence by traffickers stimulates an increase in the number of unreported cases and makes the work of the police more difficult. “In the case of Mother Carmen, there were almost 10 traffickers, according to her report. We even accompanied her to the police station, but she did not want to sign the testimony out of fear,” he says. He adds that there is a sense of impunity due to these cases not being treated seriously and reported as religious intolerance.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Police commissioner Henrique Pessoa, of the 151st Police Precinct in Nova Friburgo, coordinated the Anti-Intolerance Nucleus of the Civil Police, which consolidated the information from reports received by the Commission to Combat Religious Intolerance. “This advisory in the police stations\u2014our job was to raise awareness among police of the relevance of the investigation. The problem\u00a0cannot\u00a0be tackled in a trivial way. But unfortunately, the police work in precarious and inadequate conditions.” The nucleus was closed in 2012 during the restructuring of the Civil Police under the administration of former governor S\u00e9rgio\u00a0Cabral (PMDB).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Mother Elaine and Father\u00a0M\u00e1rcio<\/h3>\n

Elaine Dias Pereira, whose religious name is Mother Elaine de\u00a0Oxal\u00e1, has lived in Nova Igua\u00e7u for 30 years\u2014and for 30 years she has been persecuted for her religion. She says that as soon as she started the Candombl\u00e9 house in Santa Rita, a neighborhood in Nova Igua\u00e7u, they set fire to the columns of the house. Even today, they constantly throw stones at the tiles. As of last December, she has not filed a complaint or report at the police station. But at that time, a bomb exploded on the terreiro<\/em>‘s electric meter while a religious ceremony was taking place. “There were a lot of people, lots of followers of the faith here in the house. There were children, pregnant women, and the explosion was scary. When the bomb went off we had no idea what was happening.”\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

She went to the police precinct (58th) to report the case. “To my surprise, I was very well assisted and the case was registered as religious intolerance. It was a victory. I came back here happy because I had managed to do that.” A police inspector visited the house the next day. “The case did not go ahead, an investigation was never followed through until the end,” she says. After the episode, she decided to put two cameras in front of the\u00a0terreiro<\/em>, which prevented further aggressions.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Father\u00a0M\u00e1rcio\u00a0Virginio\u00a0also had to put a camera in the yard of his terreiro<\/em> in Penha<\/a>, in the North Zone of Rio de Janeiro, to identify the individuals throwing stones and trash in the Candombl\u00e9 house. The house has been open for three years and, from the second year onward, the attacks began to occur on the same days, Monday and Saturday, always at the time of a ceremony. “The stones come from the building next to us, and the camera is not so good, so I’ll spend more money to buy a better camera.” In addition to breaking parts of the roof, the attackers have also broken an image of Caboclo, an orix\u00e1<\/em> worshipped in the house. “When we find a broken image of a spirit it makes me sad, because it is the home of our sacred entity.”\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

He had to put tarpaulin in the open part of the courtyard so that people would not be hit by the stones being thrown at them during religious ceremonies. “My house has a lot of old people, people who come in wheelchairs. People already arrive in fear.”<\/p>\n

Father M\u00e1rcio went to the police station when the assaults started to become more frequent. “The first time they [the police] did not file an incident report. Only the second time.” He says he went to the station at least 20 times to make more complaints. “They did nothing,” he says.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Advocates of religious freedom see a link between police inaction and prejudice. Ivanir\u00a0dos Santos argues that a key step, which is pending, would be the implementation of teaching of African and Afro-Brazilian history and culture in schools, in accordance with Law 10639<\/a>. The fault lies with the lack of knowledge. “It’s no use putting the blame only on Neo-Pentecostals\u00a0because it’s not just them. To the whole Brazilian of society we are sorcerers, witch doctors, and evil,” he explains.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

On September 27, the federal Supreme Court authorized religious teaching in public schools<\/a>\u2014that is, classes can follow the teachings of specific religions. For\u00a0Ivanir\u00a0dos Santos, the effect of the ruling will be to increase discrimination and persecution of Afro-Brazilian religions. “This recognizes the role of the church as an element of the State, this is just like in the colonial period and the empire,” he says.\u00a0Jayro de Jesus agrees that religious education reinforces the duality between good and evil. “The churches feel that they hold what is good, not only for the soul, but for social life. So religious education in schools incentivizes this duality,” he says.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Without knowing the religion, it is difficult for society to understand the seriousness of these attacks. In the African worldview, the arrangement of the orix\u00e1s<\/i>\u00a0is a kind of “extension of the self,” of existence itself, explains Professor\u00a0Jayro de Jesus. “This violence is much more aggressive than you think.” Disrespecting religious leaders and Afro-Brazilian symbols of representation, he says, is understood as a form of expulsion. For many people, after such destruction, it is necessary to rebuild oneself in another physical space.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In order to rebuild herself, Mother\u00a0Merinha\u00a0counted on a mutir\u00e3o<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>of volunteers who\u00a0helped physically clean her house swept by the flames. Now, she prepares the ritual of religious cleansing, with prayers for the Pretos Velhos<\/a>\u00a0spirits. “We are going through a time of great religious intolerance in our country, which is getting worse every day. I do not know if everyone knows this, but our space unfortunately also has become part of this statistic of hatred,” she wrote to her followers.<\/p>\n

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

\n

*A past that returns<\/h3>\n

At various points in Brazilian history, Afro-Brazilian religions, which maintain a theological and philosophical essence based on the values of black African civilizations, have been repressed and treated as primitive and profane practices. Until the Imperial Constitution, enacted in 1824, which granted some freedom of worship to non-Catholics, Afro-Brazilian religions were persecuted by the State and considered criminal<\/a>. During that period, enslaved black Africans could only worship the divinities secretly. Religious freedom only came to be considered a fundamental right with the 1988 Constitution.<\/h5>\n
“Today, what Neo-Pentecostalism\u00a0does with the\u00a0terreiros<\/em>, the Catholic Church did in the colonial period and in the empire. The destruction of the\u00a0terreiros<\/em>\u00a0has this logic, of a past that is returning in the present,” says professor\u00a0Jayro\u00a0de Jesus.<\/h5>\n
The more than 130-year history of the\u00a0Il\u00e8\u00a0A\u015f\u00e9\u00a0Op\u00f2\u00a0Afonj\u00e1\u00a0terreiro<\/em>, the oldest in Rio de Janeiro, reveals the resistance of Candombl\u00e9. Two years before the abolition of slavery, in 1886, Eug\u00eania\u00a0Ana dos Santos, or Mother\u00a0Aninha, moved from Salvador to Rio’s Port region<\/a> and settled in Pedra do Sal<\/a>. After abolition, repression continued, and the police made arrests under the Vandalism Law.<\/h5>\n
The Law punished black African manifestations, such as capoeira, samba and religious practices. “Today, they are changing locations to preserve this tradition, just as they did in the\u00a0slave quarters,” explains Sandra\u00a0Brand\u00e3o, 47, a teacher and president of the Civil Society of\u00a0Il\u00e8\u00a0A\u015f\u00e9\u00a0Op\u00f2\u00a0Afonj\u00e1\u00a0of Rio\u2014a name meaning House of Force Supported by\u00a0Xang\u00f4.<\/h5>\n
The house passed through several locations before settling in S\u00e3o Jo\u00e3o de Meriti, in the Baixada\u00a0Fluminense, to escape religious intolerance. “The goal was to move away from the big centers,” says the granddaughter of Edgard\u00a0Brand\u00e3o, who came from Salvador with Mother\u00a0Aninha. “And even at this address we are at today, there was also intolerance. I have\u00a0an 89-year-old biological aunt who says that as a child, children would play noisily in front of the house so the Candombl\u00e9 rituals could take place in the background without the police coming to stop this practice.” The preventive measures continue. Sandra says that the older people are particularly frightened\u2014and that fear has already had a psychological effect. “When we observe our religious practices, we say, check the gate, it has to be closed,” she says.<\/h5>\n
Most of the old Candombl\u00e9 houses in Rio de Janeiro continue in the Baixada\u00a0Fluminense, such as the Terreiro\u00a0Al\u00e1k\u00e9t\u00fa\u00a0and the Casa Branca. Mother Beata de\u00a0Iemanj\u00e1\u00a0followed the same path: she moved from Salvador to Rio in 1969 and in 1985 founded the\u00a0terreiro<\/em>\u00a0Il\u00ea\u00a0Omiojuar\u00f4 in Miguel Couto, Nova Igua\u00e7u. Recognized for her activism in various causes, including religious freedom, Mother Beata died in May of this year in Nova Igua\u00e7u, where she “found her ties, her well-woven support networks among the black\u00a0terreiro<\/em>\u00a0population,” says Father\u00a0Adailton, the\u00a0biological son of Mother Beata de\u00a0Iemanj\u00e1.<\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas For the original article in Portuguese by Gabriele Roza published by investigative news agency Ag\u00eancia P\u00fablica click\u00a0here. Hate crimes against practitioners of Umbanda and Candombl\u00e9 in Rio de Janeiro represent 90% […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":156,"featured_media":40159,"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":[1288,1330,336],"tags":[662,460,1041,1500,617,641,794,552,1197,2590,188,25,354,2225,2591,2588,218,37,2593,122,2589,558,1053,2140,123,233,1631,1079,2592,1385],"writer":[2581],"translator":[2483],"illustrator":[],"photographer":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-40117","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-highlight","8":"category-translation","9":"category-violations","10":"tag-afro-brazilian-culture","11":"tag-baixada-fluminense","12":"tag-black-awareness-month","13":"tag-candomble","14":"tag-catholic-church","15":"tag-cidade-alta","16":"tag-complexo-do-lins","17":"tag-evangelical-church","18":"tag-greater-rio","19":"tag-hate-crime","20":"tag-history","21":"tag-human-rights","22":"tag-law","23":"tag-marcelo-crivella","24":"tag-morro-do-dende","25":"tag-morro-do-urubu","26":"tag-mutirao","27":"tag-north-zone","28":"tag-nova-friburgo","29":"tag-nova-iguacu","30":"tag-pilares","31":"tag-prejudice","32":"tag-prison","33":"tag-prison-system","34":"tag-religion","35":"tag-religious-freedom","36":"tag-seropedica","37":"tag-umbanda","38":"tag-universal-church-of-the-kingdom-of-god","39":"tag-violence","40":"writer-gabriele-roza","41":"translator-desiree-poets"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40117","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\/156"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40117"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40117\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/40159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40117"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fwriter&post=40117"},{"taxonomy":"translator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftranslator&post=40117"},{"taxonomy":"illustrator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fillustrator&post=40117"},{"taxonomy":"photographer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fphotographer&post=40117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}