Rio: Slum residents demonstrate for peace on Copacabana beach

Slum residents from Rio de Janeiro demonstrated for peace in Copacabana beach on Sunday (July 2) in memory of Marlene Maria da Conceição, 76, and her daughter Ana Cristina Conceição, 42, who were killed by stray bullets in the Mangueira slum last Friday (30).

Washington Fortunato, chair of the local residents' association for Mangueira, points out innocent people dying in Rio's poor communities is a daily scene.

Another community leader, Gisele Dias, says the rights of slum dwellers are increasingly being violated. “This is a resistance demonstration, we're here to give people in the slum a voice to tell the government how much suffering we've been putting up with in there. We never know if we'll be able to go back home. We're stuck in the middle of this war between police and criminals.”

In a statement, the State Security Secretariat said that “it is focusing on protecting lives and peaceful coexistence and reducing crime rates in the state” by investing in sending peacekeeping forces to the communities and in a program to control excessive use of force, created to “assess and train police officers working for the troops most reported for brutality.”

Translated by Mayra Borges