Brazil: The urgent need to demilitarize the police
Thursday, December 1st, 2011
((Brasil de Fato photo))
[Translation of an article from Brasil de Fato of São Paulo for November 23. See original here.]
By Eduardo Sales de Lima
What after all is the role of the police in society? Considering this year alone, it is striking how actions of the militarized state police have been marked with “excesses.” Police violence has been seen especially in responses to public political demonstrations (taking as an example the Marcha da Maconha [Marijuana March], where journalists were injured by the police), in the troubled relations between the police and inhabitants of poor communities in large Brazilian cities and, more recently, in the evictions from the rector’s building of the University of São Paulo. (more…)