Black Lives Matter protest Rio police violence ahead of Olympics
Source: Reuters
World | Sat Jul 23, 2016 4:50pm EDT
Black Lives Matter protest Rio police violence ahead of Olympics
RIO DE JANEIRO | BY THALES CARNEIRO
American activists from the Black Lives Matter movement marched with Brazilian partners through central Rio de Janeiro on Saturday, to protest police violence before the city hosts the first-ever Olympics in South America next month.
The activists, better known for campaigning against police brutality and racial profiling in the United States, traveled to Rio to highlight some of the similarities with their cause in Brazil.
The country, Latin America's biggest, is home more than 200 million people, a majority of whom identify themselves as black or mixed. Those with darker skin, nonetheless, face significant social and economic constraints compared with whites in addition to a dramatically higher rate of conflicts with police.
Organized by a group of six activists associated with the U.S.-based movement, Saturday's march included about 200 Brazilian activists and a ceremony at Candelaria cathedral, the infamous site of a 1993 massacre in which a death squad, including off-duty policemen, killed eight children and adolescents who slept on the church steps.
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http://www.reuters.com/article/us-olympics-rio-race-idUSKCN1030XU