Record of the vigil held one day after the Jacarezinho massacre, May 2021. Photo: Ramon VellascoClique aqui para Português During the transition from 2023 to 2024, while most of Rio de Janeiro joyfully celebrated the world’s largest New Year’s Eve party, the Jacarezinho favela in the North Zone experienced a harsh reality: shootings and rights violations that underscore the stark disparity between our city’s different realities. In response to these tragedies, the State of Rio de Janeiro’s Public Defenders’ Office and the Fluminense Federal University’s Study Group on the New Illegalities (GEN ..read more

Rio de Janeiro Councilwoman Marielle Franco, born and raised in Complexo da Maré, in Rio de Janeiro’s North Zone. Photo: PSOL YouTube channelClique aqui para Português On March 24, 2024, the Brazilian Federal Police (PF) launched an operation resulting in the arrests of three suspects behind the March 14, 2018 murder of Rio de Janeiro Councilwoman Marielle Franco and her driver, Anderson Gomes. The accused are: Domingos Brazão, advisor to the Rio de Janeiro Auditory Court (TCE-RJ), named the mastermind behind the crime; Chiquinho Brazão, Domingos’ brother and a sitting Federal Congressman  ..read more

Charred bus shells litter the landscape between the Antares and Cesarão favelas in the West Zone of Rio de Janeiro; approximately 35 buses were torched in the area, following the death of a key militia leader. Photo: Reproduction from social mediaClique aqui para Português The phenomenon of police officers operating outside the law and organizing armed groups in Rio de Janeiro is not a recent one, with records dating back to at least the 1950s. Extermination groups, involving police officers, firefighters, and municipal guards, active or retired, have been operating for decades in the Baixada ..read more

In Rio de Janeiro, the most “effective public policy” has always been the production of shootings, panic, illness, and deaths in peripheral territories. Photo: Lucas Martins Clique aqui para Português For the original opinion piece written by Guilherme Pimentel and published in Brasil de Fato on April 18, 2024, click here. On the day I write this article, there are police operations unfolding in several favelas in Rio de Janeiro. In Complexo da Maré, families are trapped at home, people are being shot and killed, children are out of school, adults are out of work, the elderly are left without ..read more

Section of Lagoa do Quiabal, in the Guandu Environmental Protection Area. Photo: Fabio LeonClique aqui para Português This article is part of a series created in partnership with the Behner Stiefel Center for Brazilian Studies at San Diego State University, to produce articles for the Digital Brazil Project on environmental justice in the favelas for RioOnWatch. In early 2020, some 6 million people in Greater Rio de Janeiro were forced to change their daily habits, due to the presence of a strange material that should not have been found in drinking water. G ..read more

The utility poles in the Piedade neighborhood were never top quality, but they have never been in such a poor state either. Numerous loose and cut cables, and open boxes are visible on almost every pole in the area. Photo: Joaquim da SilvaClique aqui para Português At 3:27pm on January 17, 2023, Maria* lost her Internet connection at home in Piedade, situated between the neighborhoods of Méier and Madureira in the North Zone of Rio de Janeiro. Initially, Maria thought the issue might be due to wind or kite strings entangled in the cables, expecting the connection to return soon. However, hours ..read more

The Crime Bureau. Illustration: Latuff Clique aqui para Português Originally published in Portuguese in 2020, this is part two of a two-part article that describes the expansion of the state-sanctioned power of vigilante police militias in the Rio de Janeiro Metropolitan Region. Still relevant four years later, with new municipal elections to take place, we publish the article to facilitate international understanding of Rio’s security situation. This second part provides a brief history of the militias from the military dictatorship to present day, examining their methods of infiltrating the ..read more

Militias and Power in Rio de Janeiro. Illustration: The Intercept Clique aqui para Português Originally published in Portuguese in 2020, this is part one of a two-part article that discusses the expansion of the state-sanctioned power of vigilante police militias in the Rio de Janeiro Metropolitan Region. Still relevant four years later, with new municipal elections to take place, we publish the article to facilitate international understanding of Rio’s security situation. This first part reflects on the involvement of the militias in the 2020 municipal elections. Paramilitary groups have ..read more

Valdirene Militão in a sustainable toy workshop at the Zilda Arns daycare center in Colônia Juliano Moreira, in Jacarepaguá, in Rio’s West Zone. Photo: Personal archivesClique aqui para Português Valdirene Oliveira Militão, affectionately known as Val in the Roquete Pinto favela in Complexo da Maré, located in Rio de Janeiro’s North Zone, where she has lived for 52 years, embodies the possibility of everyday sustainable practices accessible to favela residents. Agroecology and sustainability, which increasingly gain space in public debate, are knowledge passed down in the favela in an affectio ..read more

The Acari Market, next the metro line. Photo: The Marielle Franco Favelas DictionaryClique aqui para Português The traditional Acari Fair, which for five decades brightened Sunday mornings around the Acari/Fazenda Botafogo metro station, was abruptly closed on January 22 by Mayor Eduardo Paes, who shared on his social media accounts that, following a conversation with Governor Cláudio Castro, he would issue a decree to prohibit the Acari Fair from taking place on any day. City Hall’s decision was announced less than two weeks after the devastating floods that swept through the surrounding fave ..read more