Brasil-Deaf, Dumb, and Blind

 

BRAZIL

Deaf, Dumb and Blind

The United Nations urged Brazil’s government to investigate the deadly beating of a black man by white security guards in the southern city of Porto Alegre, which sparked days of protests last week, Agence France-Presse reported Tuesday.

The Brazilian city was gripped by unrest after video footage showed 40-year-old welder Joao Alberto Silveira Freitas being punched in the face and head by a supermarket security guard while another guard held him.

UN spokeswoman Ravina Shamsadani noted that the incident was “an extreme but sadly all too common example of the violence suffered by Black people in Brazil.”

She said that President Jair Bolsonaro’s administration should conduct an independent investigation and reform the country’s laws, institutions and policies to address “deeply engrained racial stereotypes.”

Bolsonaro has downplayed the role of structural racism in Brazil while Vice President Hamilton Mourao declared Friday that “there is no racism” in Brazil.

More than 50 percent of Brazil’s 212 million people identify as Black or mixed-race with Shamsadani pointing out that the number of Afro-Brazilian homicide victims is “disproportionately higher than other groups.”