Brazil Violence: a protester throws a cone towards a Carrefour store during a march in Sao Paulo.
Alegre, Brazil:
More than 1,000 protesters attacked a Carrefour Brasil supermarket in the southern Brazilian city of Porto Alegre on Friday after security guards beat a black man to death in the store.
The murder, which sparked protests across Brazil, occurred Thursday night when a store employee called security after the man threatened to attack her, the GloboNews cable news channel said, citing state military police. from Rio Grande do Sul.
Images of fans of the fatal beating and tributes to the black victim were posted on social media. His father identified him in the local media as Joao Alberto Silveira Freitas, 40.
The G1 news website later reported that an initial analysis by the state forensic institute indicated that the cause of death could be suffocation.
In a statement on Friday, France’s local Carrefour SA unit said it deeply regretted what it called a brutal death and said it immediately took steps to ensure that those responsible were legally punished.
He said he would terminate the contract with the security company, fire the clerk in charge of the store at the time of the incident, and close the store as a sign of respect.
In a series of tweets in Portuguese on Friday night, Carrefour president and CEO Alexandre Bompard said the images posted on social media were “unbearable.”
“Carrefour Brazil immediately implemented internal measures, in particular towards the security company involved. These measures do not go far enough. My values and Carrefour’s values do not allow racism and violence,” Bompard said.
He called for a full review of employee and subcontractor training on safety, diversity and tolerance values.
“I have asked the Carrefour Brasil teams to cooperate fully with the judicial authorities to get to the bottom of this heinous action,” he added.
In Porto Alegre, protesters handed out stickers with the Carrefour logo stained with blood on Friday afternoon and called for a boycott of the chain. They held a banner in Portuguese that read “Black Lives Matter” and posters calling for justice for Beto, a nickname for the victim.
The protest turned violent on Friday night when protesters smashed windows and delivery vehicles in the supermarket parking lot. A Reuters witness saw police firing tear gas at protesters.
In Sao Paulo, dozens of protesters smashed the windows of a Carrefour store with stones, ripped open the entrance doors and entered the building, spilling products down the corridors before dispersing. In Rio de Janeiro, approximately 200 screaming protesters gathered outside another Carrefour store.
November 20 is honored in many parts of Brazil as Black Awareness Day. Brazilians like to think of their country as a harmonious ‘racial democracy’ and far-right President Jair Bolsonaro denies the presence of racism. But the influence of slavery, abolished in 1888, is still evident.
Black Brazilians are nearly three times more likely to be victims of homicide, according to 2019 government data.
“The culture of hatred and racism must be combated at its source and the full weight of the law must be used to punish those who promote hatred and racism,” Rodrigo Maia, president of the lower house of Congress, wrote in a tweet. Brazil. .
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