Philip Alston, a U.N. special envoy on extrajudicial executions, has released findings that Brazilian police frequently and participate in organized crime execute suspects—in reality, ordinary citizens.
His report includes strong evidence that many of the 694 people killed by police in the first half of 2007 in Rio de Janeiro alone were extra judicial executions.
The government of Rio de Janeiro hypocritically responded, “Confrontations are undesirable, but in the name of human rights … there is no way to retreat from this obligation.”
As the defender of the extreme inequality in wealth distribution that exists in Brazil, the state itself is to blame for the sharp rise in violent crime that it claims to be combating.
