Last month, Brazilian police carried out the deadliest raid in the history of Rio de Janeiro which killed 28 people. The raid was executed in the predominantly Afro-Brazilian slum in Jacarezinho, and at least 13 of those killed were not related to the original investigation.
Since then, Kill the Bill and United for Black Lives moments are marching in Brazil and many Brazilian embassies in the world calling for justice.
Despite the blood of many innocent lives on their hands and global outrage, Bolsonaro took to social media to congratulate the Rio de Janeiro police on the deadly operation in Jacarezinho. He stated:
“I congratulate the Civil Police of Rio de Janeiro. By treating traffickers who steal, kill and destroy families as victims, the media and the left make them equal to ordinary citizens who respect the laws and others.”
People are calling out the Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro’s unjust policies and insensitive remarks while the sirens of targeted racism and genocide continue to ring throughout the country. Human rights campaigners and black activists are highlighting the high rates of Afro-Brazilians killed by police a “Black genocide.”
With a population of over 211 million, Brazil has a rich history of resistance against racism and police brutality. About 57% of the Brazilian population is black or mixed-race, but they represent two-thirds of the victims of lethal violence, according to the Brazilian Forum on Public Safety, a non-governmental organisation.
The list of racially target murders carried by police is longer than convictions. In December, 2 black girls aged four and seven, were killed by the police in a shootout. Emily and Rebeca were playing outside their grandmother’s home in a redbrick favela of Rio de Janeiro when they were massacred by the police.
After Jacarezinho shooting in May, a pregnant Afro-Brazilian influencer and her unborn child were yet again killed in a police-involved shootout in Lins de Vasconcelos, Brazil on June 8th in a heart-wrenching incident.
Reflecting on the routine nature of human rights abuses such as those taking place in Brazil’s impoverished favelas, Amnesty International Brazil executive director Jurema Werneck said:
“The number of people killed in this police operation is reprehensible, as is the fact that, once again, this massacre took place in a favela.”
When global outrage about the George Floyd killing reached Brazil last May, thousands mobilized even as government officials denied systemic racism exists. Brazil was the last country in the Americas to abolish slavery in 1888, and even today the roots of anti-Blackness are still manifesting in policing and politics of Brazil.
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