Residents report human rights violations during raid on Rio favela
Reports collected by ombudsmen of the Rio de Janeiro State Public Defender’s Office after Operação Contenção (“Operation Containment”) last Tuesday (Oct. 28) in the Complexo do Alemão and Complexo da Penha favelas in northern Rio denounce human rights violations. Among the accounts, family members say that innocent people were killed or arrested, and women report being harassed by police officers.
The ombudsmen form an agency external to the state’s Public Defender’s Office.
“They came into my house and started looking for something or someone, asking me lots of questions, wanting to know if I lived alone. I said I lived with my mother and my two children,” said a 23-year-old woman who was not identified.
“They kept staring at me, saying that a beautiful woman like me deserved to live in a better place. When the guy with the ninja mask left, he squeezed my breast,” she went on to say.
Another woman said in her statement, “I was sleeping when they came in, and I only sleep in a shirt, right? I woke up scared to hear their voices. That’s when I saw they were already inside my house. I’m a manicurist and I’d been working late. They lifted the sheet with the tip of their rifle and asked me several questions, pulling my shirt with the tip of their rifle while I said, ‘Please, sir, I’m not involved in anything,’ pointing to my nail kit. Then one of them came in and took him out of my room.”
The accounts are compiled in a document released Sunday (Nov. 2). It refers to reports and events studied by the ombudsmen on October 29, 30, 31, and November 1.
According to the state’s Public Security Secretariat, 121 people were killed in the operation, including four police officers and 117 civilians. The operation served 20 of the 100 arrest warrants issued by the courts and also included 180 search-and-seizure warrants. Another 93 people were arrested in flagrante delicto. The target of the operation was the criminal organization Comando Vermelho, which controls the territory.
Residents affected
The ombudsmen responsible for the report said the operation really had an impact on the favelas’ residents, with schools, family clinics, and social welfare facilities closing.
“The closure of public facilities has harmed the lives of countless children and adolescents. Out of school, these kids were left without classes and without the guarantee of daily meals, leading to food insecurity. Also noteworthy are the elderly and those dependent on [public health care services], who were unable to attend scheduled appointments or were left without access to controlled medications. Other impacts were observed by the ombudsmen, such as trash littering the streets due to the lack of garbage collection and many homes without electricity,” the text states.
An unidentified person reported, “They broke into everyone’s homes, right? They forced them to open their doors. They didn’t respect children or the elderly. They think everyone who lives in the favela is a drug dealer. But what I’m saying [is that] there are teachers here, football players, a lot of lawyers, a lot of people who are here and who moved out without getting involved with drugs, guns, or a life of crime.”
Violations
The reports describe human rights violations such as “theft of residents’ documents, sexual harassment of women in the territory, use of houses for the practice of ‘troy’ [hiding while waiting for suspects], complaints of torture, executions, lack of forensic investigations, use of bombs targeting houses, lack of assistance, and the criminalization of leaders and families who removed the bodies,” the document reads.
The ombudsmen visited the two favela complexes as well as the Forensic Medical Institute (IML). They also participated in a meeting at the favela association CUFA and accompanied the removal of bodies from the nearby wooded area.
“Some bodies were found with their hands tied, and many had gunshot wounds to the head and stab wounds,” the ombudsmen say.
Among the reports are also accounts of innocent people who were killed or arrested.
“My husband is a construction worker and was killed in this operation. I found his body yesterday and I need help burying him,” a woman says about her spouse, who was targeted in the crackdown.
Another person says their brother is missing. “My brother is a 17-year-old teenager and has no criminal record. We’re looking for him. We’re not from Rio, ma’am. We came from Cabo Frio. We did not find him at the IML and we’ll have difficulty finding him because he never had an ID card. Please help us.”
In a third report, a person says her husband was shot, is hospitalized, and had a gun planted in his car. “They took the car to Police City [the Rio de Janeiro Civil Police headquarters] and there, miraculously enough, they found a gun. Amazing, right? When they searched the car in front of us, they found nothing, but miraculously enough, they found a gun at Police City, and the tires had been changed. The car was towed because of the flat tires. My husband is in serious condition in the hospital, and when he woke up handcuffed, he panicked, and had to be sedated to calm down. My husband is a working man and they couldn’t even find a bed available for him. He’s in the yellow room and needs to go to a trauma unit. We don’t even live in the favela, and even so, we were victims of all this violence. Please help me.”
Suggested measures
In the report, the ombudsmen make a series of suggestions for measures to prevent further deaths and violations of rights in the favelas. These include:
- mechanisms for police oversight, such as the use of cameras on uniforms and vehicles, access for families to the full content of investigations into police lethality, and improved external oversight of police activity, including the handling of complaints in real time by prosecutors as determined by the Supreme Court;
- independence of forensic experts in cases of state violence, to ensure efficient investigations;
- investigating the responsibility of the operational and political chain of command behind high rates of police lethality;
- specialized psychological and social services for families who are victims of state violence;
- a rapid response system to provide redress to families affected by state violence; and
- investment in public policies to guarantee people’s rights, especially education, health care, social assistance, work and income, culture and leisure, housing, and transportation, with a focus on youth.
Police
Agência Brasil contacted the Public Security Secretariat, the State Secretariat of Military Police, and the Civil Police Secretariat of Rio de Janeiro.
In a statement, the State Secretariat of Military Police said, “The State Secretariat of Military Police fully cooperates with all investigative procedures concerning the actions.”
At the time of publication, the other agencies contacted had not yet issued a statement.
