RIO DE JANEIRO: The office of the public ombudsman in the Brazilian state of Rio de Janeiro announced that it intends to take legal measures against police for impeding access to the beach by about 160 black teenagers.
The state police conducted a special operation last weekend and detained dozens of young people as they headed on city buses to Rio’s famous Copacabana beach.
The buses were stopped in a tunnel connecting Copacabana with the Botafogo neighborhood and the teens, who came from poor neighborhoods on Rio’s periphery, were subjected to searches and questioning.
Rio de Janeiro Gov. Luiz Fernando Pezão justified the measure as a way to prevent robberies and thefts on the beaches and said that “some” of the teens who were intercepted by police had committed such crimes on other occasions.
Nevertheless, none of the young people who were denied access to the beach was arrested because they were not carrying weapons or drugs, and they had not committed any crime.
The coordinator for the Defense of Children’s and Teenagers’ Rights with the ombudsman’s office, Eufrasia Souza das Virgens, called the detentions carried out by police “an attempt at segregation… at the request of one sector of society.”
“They are black, poor teenagers. It was they who… were (detained). There (was) selectivity by the police at the time they dealt with them,” Das Virgens told EFE.
The ombudsman’s office announced that it intends to file a lawsuit to have the state indemnify the teens for the “intimidation” they suffered.
Arbitrary detentions are nothing new, according to the ombudsman’s office, which filed a request in May that judicial authorities prohibit the police from accosting teenagers who are not committing a crime.
