Thousands of protesters have flooded the streets of Rio de Janeiro’s favelas, demanding justice and an end to the security tactics that have turned their neighborhoods into “war zones.” The demonstration came after Brazil’s deadliest-ever police operation left at least 121 people dead this week, including four officers.
The raid, launched on Tuesday in the Complexo da Penha and Complexo do Alemão two sprawling favela networks in northern Rio Police sparked global outrage after images emerged of mutilated bodies piled at an entrance to one of the communities. On Friday, hundreds of demonstrators dressed in white gathered on Vila Cruzeiro’s football field to denounce the bloodshed and call for the resignation of Rio’s right-wing governor, Cláudio Castro, who ordered the assault. One protester draped Brazil’s green-and-yellow flag across her shoulders, smeared with red paint to symbolize the bloodshed.
“We don’t want a Rio de Janeiro of blood,” said protester Raimunda Leone from the nearby Chapadão community. “No mother wants to see her son lying on the ground, riddled with bullets.”
Marching through streets riddled with bullet holes, protesters chanted “Favela Lives Matter” and carried banners demanding justice. “It’s devastating,” said Jurema Werneck, director of Amnesty International Brazil. “Those who live in war zones understand this pain and despair.”
Rio Police Raid
Police officials defended the operation as a legitimate strike against the Red Command, one of Brazil’s most powerful drug factions. Civil police chief Felipe Curi claimed the raid dealt a “severe blow” to organized crime, saying most of the victims had criminal ties. He added that police had received “incredible feedback” from locals a claim human rights groups dismissed as absurd.
Activists and residents, however, condemned what they called a state-sanctioned massacre targeting Rio Police impoverished, mostly Black communities. “Their pain is my pain,” said Priscila Barros, from the Jacarezinho favela site of a previous deadly raid in 2021 that killed 28. “Enough!” read the sign she carried.
Security analysts called the operation a senseless massacre that would do nothing to resolve Rio Police decades-long drug conflict. “It’s an international disgrace,” said Silvia Ramos, head of the Centre for Studies on Public Security and Citizenship. “We’ve seen thousands of young, poor Black men from the favelas killed since the 1980s. Nothing changes the Red Command will be just as strong a month from now.”
Cecília Olliveira, from the violence-monitoring group Fogo Cruzado, described the raid as “a portrait of a government that has replaced policy with spectacle.”
Despite widespread condemnation, many conservative politicians and sections of Brazil’s media praised the killings as a triumph for “law and order.” Several right-wing presidential hopefuls even traveled to Rio Police to celebrate the operation. “It shouldn’t be called the deadliest it should be called the most successful,” said Minas Gerais governor Romeu Zema. (Source)
Governor Castro defended the offensive, calling the victims “narco-terrorists.” “In Paris, London, or New York, someone carrying a rifle would be taken down in seconds,” he argued.
Meanwhile, horrific reports of summary executions continue to emerge including the decapitation of one man whose head was displayed in the hills above Vila Cruzeiro.
