From the first day that protesters took to the streets of São Paulo to protest against the readjustment of public transport fares, in 2013, there was repression by the Military Police. From then on, police actions to contain and even prevent street demonstrations gained strength and different levels of sophistication. “We cannot fail to understand June 2013 as a milestone in the process of criminalizing social struggles”, argues Raísa Cetra, coordinator of the non-governmental organization Artigo 19, which focuses on freedom of expression. For her, the country lacks understanding of demonstrations as an important part of democracy. “The streets have always been seen, for various political sectors, as a threat. Including for progressive sectors, ”she says. NGOs see the June 2013 protests as a milestone in the process of criminalizing social struggles – Fabio Rodrigues-Pozzebom/ Agência Brasil Thus, the protests for rights ended up, according to her, being understood as an action of political destabilization. “There, there was no reading of who the enemy was in fact and it was understood that it was the population that was claiming for rights. At that moment, people were on the streets for education, for safe transport, for public health.” At that moment, the security forces at different levels, across the country, were preparing for the mega sporting events – the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympics. “You were already in a process of changing the behavior of the shock troops, this is a fact”, emphasizes Acácio Augusto, who coordinates the Laboratory of Analysis in International Security and Monitoring Technologies at the Federal University of São Paulo (Unifesp). Protest repressed by the PM of São Paulo in June 2013 – Raphael Tsavkko Garcia/ Flickr The great violence used against the demonstrators was, according to Augusto, one of the factors that mobilized the solidarity of different sectors of society, providing the growth of the protests. “The trigger itself was much more police violence than transport”, emphasizes the coordinator. Despite the rejection of the forms of repression employed, with the arrest of hundreds of people and the indiscriminate use of rubber bullets and tear gas bombs, the expert believes that the action models continued to be improved in the following months and years. After the day of protests against the increase, came demonstrations against excessive spending on works in preparation for the World Cup. “The first act against the Cup they are going to apply the Caldeirão de Hamburg, which is the isolation of part of the demonstrators with a police cordon. I think there is a strong issue linked to the change in how the police deal with these protests”, he says. This same type of tactic would be used, according to Augusto, for similar demonstrations in the following years, such as the protests of high school students against school reorganization, in São Paulo, in 2016. “You had a maximum of 200 high school students walking in [Avenida] Paulista, surrounded by the police on all sides. The idea of enveloping the demonstration comes from there. With the silent tactic, one of the characteristics of the autonomous demonstration is not having a sound car, without explicit leadership. You have the lanes and everybody on the same level on the street. The police response to these demonstrations was to envelop”, he says. The victims The violent actions of the police definitively marked the lives of some people, like the photographer Sérgio Silva. In the repression of the act on June 13, 2013, on Rua da Consolação, he lost sight in his left eye when he was hit by a rubber bullet. The scenes of that day were a turning point in public opinion and for various media, which began to speak openly in favor of the demonstrations. “It is a day that I will certainly never forget”, says Silva. The photographer says that some of the demonstrators actually carried out depredations in the heat of the moment, but he cannot believe that these actions justify the way in which the police forces acted. “What we had there were angry young people, some focused on the tariff increase agenda, others for other reasons as well. And the police acted disproportionately, ”he assesses. Photographer Sérgio Silva lost his left eye after being hit by a rubber bullet fired by the Military Police in June 2013 – Rovena Rosa/Agência Brasil These actions, according to Silva, affected the work of the press. “We had many, many colleagues who went through searches that exceeded the limit of the police approach and prevented these police from working”, he reports. The photographer is seeking compensation in court for the injury suffered during the repression. After having the request denied in two instances in the Justice of São Paulo, an appeal to the Federal Supreme Court determined that the request be reconsidered by the state court. “I am constantly having to prove to the state of São Paulo that I was shot by the police and lost my eyesight”, he complains about the way the magistrates have handled his case. According to him, the state government’s allegations are that there is no evidence that he was actually hit by a rubber bullet. “It could have been many other objects, such as, for example, a soccer ball, the head of a demonstrator. Those were the words I heard in that last hearing”, he says about the situation that he classifies as absurd. The following month, on July 14, in Rio de Janeiro, police violence became a topic of social mobilization after the disappearance of bricklayer Amarildo de Souza. He was never seen again after being taken by military police to the Pacifying Police Unit base in the Rocinha favela. During the following years, the disappearance of Amarildo, who was tortured and killed by State agents, was the target of several demonstrations. In August 2022, the Second Panel of the Superior Court of Justice (STJ) decided to uphold the conviction of the state of Rio de Janeiro to pay a pension and compensation for moral damages in the amount of BRL 500,000 for the partner and each of the mason’s children. “It is an important response from the Judiciary, to show the State that it has to know how to recruit its agents, otherwise it will be held responsible”, said the lawyer who defends the interests of Amarildo’s wife and children, João Tancredo. According to him, despite the granting of compensation, the procedures for the money to actually reach the family should take at least three years. Next Tuesday (6), the STJ must also judge an appeal so that the foster mother and the mason’s niece are also contemplated. The lawyer criticized the time for reparation to the family. “Unfortunate how long this process took. It is a simple process, where a person is removed from their home, tortured and they disappear with them, by state agents who have been convicted. The time he stayed at the STJ was three years. This is very bad. Justice that delays is justice that fails.” A member of the Movimento Passe Livre de Brasília, Paique Duques Santarém also says that, in addition to police repression, the activists suffered various slanders, such as that they would receive funding from foreign agents “This repression of street social movements weakened not only us, but others street social movements. This weakening was a weakening of popular struggle and social participation in politics,” he says. Bolsonaro years With the arrival of the extreme right to power, Raísa Cetra assesses that the scenario and setbacks in the right to demonstrate were even greater. “What we saw in the years of Bolsonarism is a series of new tools for the repression and criminalization of the popular struggle, especially through strategies of silencing, demobilization and an attempt to prevent people from going to the streets”, he analyzes about the impacts of the arrival of Jair Bolsonaro to the Presidency in 2018. “The use of crimes against honor to criminalize protesters was a tool used during Bolsonarism that we did not see in such a systematic way before. So, we had a lot of people arrested for writing ‘Bolsonaro out’ on posters or speaking prepositions against the government in demonstrations ”, she exemplifies. For the specialist, this is “another form of repression that is closer to censorship than the mobilization of a huge repressive apparatus against demonstrators”. In this sense, Raísa believes that the actions of repression of the protests in the last few years came close to the period of the military dictatorship (1964-1985), causing fear in the population, which stopped demonstrating for fear of reprisals.
Agência Brasil
Folha Nobre - Desde 2013 - ©