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São Paulo (AFP)
The death of a black man after being beaten by two white security agents in a store in the city of Porto Alegre, in southern Brazil, provokes anger in this country, which witnessed demonstrations on Friday in several of its cities.
A thousand protesters wandered through the center of Sao Paulo to reach a “Carrefour” company store and several of them threw stones at its facade before attacking, destroying and burning part of it and destroying other windows, according to a photographer from AFP.
“Carrefour’s hands are stained with black blood,” read one of the banners raised by the protesters.
In Porto Alegre, the police dispersed a demonstration using stun grenades and tear gas, according to local television. Dozens of young people shouted: “We must close Carrefour. He killed our brother, he cannot continue.”
They carried banners and wore masks with the slogan “Black lives matter.”
– My condolences to Carrefour –
Demonstrations were also held in Brasilia, Belo Horizonte and Rio de Janeiro on Friday on “Black Awareness Day” dedicated to the appreciation and recognition of blacks, and it is a public holiday in several Brazilian states.
A video taken by a witness, reported by the media and circulated on social media showed a security man hitting the black victim, Joao Alberto Silvera Freitas, 40, in the face, while another officer grabbed him.
In other images, doctors appear to be trying to revive the man who was lying at the entrance of the store, where he died.
According to the Military Police, Freitas threatened one of the store’s employees, prompting the latter to petition the security forces.
The two security officers were arrested and one of them belonged to the Military Police and worked outside office hours for a private security company.
A friend of the victim said Freitas “screamed that he couldn’t breathe” during the assault, a sermon echoed by George Floyd, the black American who was strangled to death by a white cop in Minneapolis in May, whose murder sparked widespread protests in the United States.
In a series of tweets in Portuguese, the French general manager of “Carrefour” Alexandre Bompard expressed his condolences for the “terrible act”, calling the images posted on social media “unbearable”.
He added: “I have taken internal measures directly at Carrefour Brazil, especially with regard to the security company contracted with it. These measures are insufficient. Carrefour’s principles and principles are incompatible with racism and violence.”
Bombard also requested “a complete review of the training of employees and contractors in the area of safety, respect for diversity, values of respect and rejection of forms of intolerance.”
The Brazilian branch of the “Carrefour” group had condemned the “brutal death” of Fritas and declared its intention to take “the appropriate measures to punish those involved in this criminal case.”
– “Colour blindness” –
The tragic case unleashed a wave of outrage on social media.
“They beat a black man to death in front of the cameras. Violence and hatred have no control,” read a tweet by Brazilian international soccer player Richarlison. A reference to blacks who died as a result of police violence.
For his part, the Brazilian vice president, Hamilton Murao, affirmed that what happened was not an incident of racism, and said that the “regrettable” death of Freitas came at the hands of “a security agent not qualified for this activity.” “For me, there is no racism in Brazil. This is something they want to import to Brazil. It is something that does not exist here.”
For his part, President Jair Bolsonaro highlighted in a tweet that the country’s problems “go beyond ethnic issues,” without referring directly to Freitas. He added that the “great evil” in Brazil is “moral, social and political corruption.”
“As president, I am color blind, the colors are all the same. There is no better skin color than other colors. There are good people and bad people,” said the far-right president.
Brazil, the last Latin American country to abolish slavery in 1888, has a total of 212 million people, more than half of whom are black or mestizo.
According to the “Atlas of Violence” published last August, murders of blacks increased 11.5 percent between 2008 and 2018, while murders of non-blacks decreased 12.9 percent.
© 2020 AFP
