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News > Brazil

Brazil: United Nations OHCR Condemns Structural Racism

  • People protest against the murder of a black man in Brazil, November 22, 2020.

    People protest against the murder of a black man in Brazil, November 22, 2020. | Photo: EFE/ Antonio Lacerda

Published 24 November 2020
Opinion

The OHCR considers that "Government officials in Brazil have a particular responsibility to acknowledge the persisting racism in the country." 

The United Nations condemned on Tuesday the killing of the black citizen João Alberto Silveira by security forces in Brazil, a police brutality incident that has sparked a wave of social unrest while exposing structural racism.

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Brazil Protests Demand Justice for Afro-Brazilian João Alberto

"The structural racism, discrimination, and violence that people of African descent face in Brazil is documented by official data, which indicates that the number of Afro-Brazilian victims of homicide is disproportionately higher than other groups," the spokesperson for the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) Ravina Shamdasani denounced in a statement.

"We also call on the authorities to investigate any allegations of unnecessary and disproportionate use of force against people protesting peacefully following Silveira Freitas's death and hold those responsible to account," the official added.

The OHCR considers that "Government officials in Brazil have a particular responsibility to acknowledge the persisting racism in the country." The organization also called on authorities to investigate "any allegations of unnecessary and disproportionate use of force against people protesting peacefully following Silveira Freitas's death."

On Monday, the Black Coalition for Rights submitted an investigation to the Brazilian Prosecutor's Office against the French supermarket network Carrefour, in Porto Alegre, for the murder of a black man in one of its units November 20, 2020.

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