A special deployment of Brazilian troops on Saturday began fanning out in the northern city of Fortaleza with orders to stop a spike in violent attacks by criminal gangs against banks, buses and shops, officials said.
By the end of the weekend, 300 soldiers would be patrolling the city and other towns in Ceara State in a bid to halt the rampage, Brazilian Secretary of Public Security Guilherme Teophilo said, according to government news agency Agencia Brasil.
The intervention is the first test of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s law-and-order platform since he took office on Tuesday.
Photo: AP
His minister of justice ordered the deployment after saying that Ceara police were overwhelmed.
About 50 suspects have been arrested.
The gangs terrorizing Fortaleza could be seen torching service stations in security footage aired by Brazilian media.
Dozens of attacks took place last week, forcing residents to stay at home and leaving main roads deserted.
In one attack, explosives badly damaged a pillar supporting a flyover road in the town of Caucaia, just to the west of Fortaleza.
The triggers for the wave of violence were being investigated, but intelligence reports published by media suggested gangs were revolting against new measures imposed in the state’s prisons.
The changes include blocks on cellphone signals and an end to a policy of separating inmates according to gang affiliation.
Two gangs have set aside their rivalry to join forces against the government, the G1 news site reported, citing security officials.
Bolsonaro has vowed to crack down on Brazil’s rampant crime by extending immunity to soldiers and police using lethal force and easing gun laws so “good” citizens can challenge armed criminals.
The president, a 63-year-old former paratrooper, has made “restoring order” a centerpiece of his four-year mandate.
Much of that task falls to Brazilian Minister of Justice Sergio Moro, a former star judge who headed up Operation Car Wash, an investigation into Brazil’s biggest-ever corruption scandal.
Bolsonaro on Friday praised Moro’s decision to send in troops as “apt, rapid and effective.”
Ceara’s governor belongs to the Workers’ Party, which was driven into opposition by the election of Bolsonaro and his allies.
Brazil has the third-biggest prison population in the world, behind the US and China, with nearly 730,000 inmates as of 2016.
Penitentiaries are overcrowded and prey to gangs that often viciously turn on each other.
The three gangs active in Ceara are the Red Command, which grew out of organized criminal activity in Rio de Janeiro, the First Command of the Capital based in Sao Paulo, and a group called the Guardians of the State.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique