Brazilian police protesting unpaid salaries and officers’ deaths on Monday once again welcomed travelers arriving at Rio de Janeiro airport with banners reading: “Welcome to Hell” a month before the Olympic Games.
The protest by more than 100 emergency services workers, including firefighters, took place in the arrival hall at Galeao International Airport, which will be a key entry point for the expected half a million tourists visiting the Games starting on Aug. 5.
Officers held up a banner reading: “Welcome to hell. Police and firefighters don’t get paid, whoever comes to Rio de Janeiro will not be safe.”
Photo: EPA
Mannequins dressed in uniform were laid out on the floor to represent the more than 50 officers killed in Rio de Janeiro so far this year. A female officer with fake blood smeared on her face and hands clutched a mannequin dressed in a T-shirt reading: “SOS policia.”
“We are here to show citizens and tourists from abroad the realities of Brazil,” veteran police officer Alexander Neto, 56, said. “They’ve been conned and we too have been conned. You have to understand there is no public security.”
Rio de Janeiro police began staging street protests, including one at the airport, last week, saying that they have not been fully paid for months as the state hovers on the brink of bankruptcy.
An emergency federal bailout received last week started to be paid out on Monday, local news reports said, with the government beginning to meet delayed commitments to emergency services workers, teachers, hospital staff and prison administrators.
Rio de Janeiro is set to become the first South American city in history to host the Olympics. However, there are growing fears about the ability of police to control crime during the Games.
Murders in the first quarter of this year are up 15 percent on the same period last year.
Non-lethal crimes such as street robberies are also on the rise, highlighted by the hijacking on Friday last week of a truck carrying US$445,000 of television equipment to be used for Olympics coverage.
David Cervantes, a Colombian tourist who came across the airport protest on his arrival in Rio de Janeiro, said he was shocked.
“It’s not the best welcome we could get from Rio de Janeiro, which has the reputation of being such a wonderful city,” Cervantes said. “I’m not quite sure what to think.”
Rio de Janeiro Mayor Eduardo Paes admits that crime has become a serious issue on the eve of the Olympics, but blames the security problems on the state, not the city government.
“This is the most serious issue in Rio and the state is doing a terrible, horrible job,” Paes told CNN.
In addition to violence and the effects of a bruising recession, preparations for the Olympics have been plagued by Brazil’s political instability and a series of corruption scandals.
Huge construction companies building stadiums and other Olympic infrastructure have been implicated in a multibillion-dollar embezzlement scheme centered on state oil company Petrobras.
Now police are investigating the suspected embezzlement of subsidies for Brazilian athletes, O Globo television reported.
The probe centers on deals signed by sports confederations and SB Marketing e Promocoes, a promotional company, the channel said in a report aired late on Sunday.
The marketing firm was hired by the sports ministry to channel subsidies to fund athletes’ training, worth about US$9 million, it said.
SB Marketing declined to comment on the report.
A US YouTuber who caused outrage for filming himself kissing a statue commemorating Korean wartime sex slaves has been sentenced to six months in prison, a court in Seoul said yesterday. Johnny Somali, 25, gained notoriety several years ago for recording himself doing a series of provocative stunts in South Korea and Japan, and streaming them on platforms such as YouTube and Twitch. South Korean authorities indicted Somali — whose real name is Ramsey Khalid Ismael — in 2024 on public order violations and obstruction of business, and banned him from leaving the country. “The court has sentenced him to six months in
Former Lima mayor Rafael Lopez Aliaga, a Peruvian presidential hopeful, gathered hundreds of supporters in Lima on Tuesday and gave authorities 24 hours to annul the first round of the country’s election over allegations of fraud. Lopez Aliaga is locked in a tight three-way race with two other candidates for second place in Sunday’s vote. The election runner-up wins a ticket to June’s presidential run-off against front-runner Keiko Fujimori. “I am giving them 24 hours to declare this electoral fraud null and void,” said Lopez Aliaga, surrounded by a crowd of several hundred supporters. “If it is not declared null and void tomorrow,
PAPAL RETORT: Pope Leo told reporters that he has ‘no fear, neither of the Trump administration nor speaking out loudly about the message of the Gospel’ US President Donald Trump has feuded with Pope Leo XIV over the Iran conflict — setting off an unholy row that could have serious political implications for the Republican leader back in the US. Trump has drawn barbs even from some allies over the attacks on the US-born pontiff, who has criticized the Trump administration over its immigration crackdown, the intervention in Venezuela and the Iran war. The president risks alienating the religious right in November’s crucial US midterm elections. So far the unprecedented clash between the leader of the most powerful military on Earth and the head of the world’s 1.4 billion
A 16-year-old boy has been charged with murder and aggravated sexual abuse in Florida in the death of his 18-year-old stepsister on a Carnival Cruise ship, the US Department of Justice said on Monday. Timothy Hudson was initially charged in February and subsequently indicted on March 10, but the breadth of the case was not known until a seal was lifted on Friday last week, weeks after US District Judge Beth Bloom in Miami said that he would be prosecuted as an adult at the request of the government. Anna Kepner had been traveling on the Carnival Horizon ship in November last
RSS