Sharp Increase in Police Killings in Rio Ahead of Games

Amnesty International reported on 2 August that a sharp increase in police killings has effectively cast “a shadow of death” over Rio de Janeiro as the city and country prepares to host the Olympic Games, which are due to begin on 5 August.

The rights group has reported that the number of people killed by police in the crime-plagued Brazilian city has more than doubled between April and June 2016 from a year ago. Citing state security figures, Amnesty disclosed that police in Rio de Janeiro killed 49 people 25 people in April; 40 in May and 49 in June, adding that since 2009, when Rio won the bid to host the Summer Olympic Games, police have killed more than 2,600 people in the city.

In a statement, Atila Roque, director at Amnesty International Brazil, disclosed that “just when we thought the levels of police brutality could not get any more shocking, they do,” adding that “a shadow of death has set over Rio de Janeiro and it seems the authorities only car about how pretty the Olympic Part looks.”

Recent attacks claimed by extremists groups in Europe, coupled with the arrest of a cell with purported links to the so-called Islamic State (IS) group in Brazil in late July, have added to security concerns during the Olympics. While organizers have responded to these concerns by increasing the number of soldiers and police patrolling the event to nearly 90,000, Amnesty has disclosed that poor training and excessive use of lethal force by police are pat of a misguided approach to public security in the South American country.

Speaking recently at a news conference, Renata Neder, a human rights adviser for Amnesty, disclosed that “the authorities are not looking into preventive measures to tackle and to curb the executions by police,” adding that “there are specific cases of people bing killed in operations for the Games.”