Tens of thousands of Brazilians have taken to the streets of Rio de Janiero to protest the murder of Marielle Franco, a city councillor and prominent human rights activist.
The 38-year-old and her driver, Anderson Pedro Gomes, were gunned down in an apparent assassination on Wednesday night after leaving an empowerment event for black women.
Franco’s death has “reverberated across the city and beyond as thousands of people gathered at rallies, expressed their outrage on Twitter and wept openly in public”, the LA Times reports.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
As a gay black woman raised in one of Rio’s poorest favelas, Franco “defied the odds” to win the fifth-highest vote count among council members when she was elected in 2016, The Guardian says.
She championed the rights of the most marginalised in Rio, especially poor women of colour and members of the LGBTQ community, and was a vocal critic of police violence.
A Rio public prosecutor who wished to remain anonymous said Franco’s killing appeared to be politically motivated.
“It is far too soon to say, but we are obviously looking at this as a murder in response to her political work, that is a main theory,” the prosecutor told Reuters.
Her murder comes just weeks after President Michel Temer ordered the army to take over security in Rio de Janeiro, following months of worsening gang violence.
Franco, who was part of a commission to oversee the military intervention, “harshly criticised the move” just days before her death, warning that it could worsen police violence against residents, Reuters reports.
Continue reading for free
We hope you're enjoying The Week's refreshingly open-minded journalism.
Subscribed to The Week? Register your account with the same email as your subscription.
-
The daily gossip: Man arrested in connection with shooting of Tupac Shakur, an OceanGate movie is in the works, and moreFeature The daily gossip: September 29, 2023
-
What to expect from an El Niño winter
The Explainer Things might be different thanks to this well-known weather phenomenon
-
The week’s best photojournalism
In Pictures A steaming volcano, a giant crater and more
-
Dodgy cash disguised as sandwiches
Tall Tales And other stories from the stranger side of life
-
Argentinian police arrest biggest online distributor of Nazi propaganda
Speed Reads Officials seized hundreds of texts glorifying Adolf Hitler, denying Holocaust and bearing swastikas
-
How North Korean hackers stole billions in crypto
Speed Read Pyongyang-backed cyber gangs use ‘mixers’ to launder their criminal proceeds
-
Brain-damaged seals attack bathers
feature And other stories from the stranger side of life
-
Chinese secret police stations around the globe
feature Report claims Chinese citizens in exile are monitored and coerced by their own authorities
-
Turkish government blames Kurdish separatists for Istanbul bombing
Speed Read Blast in busy street on Sunday killed six people and wounded scores more
-
Thousands attend vigils for Cassius Turvey in Australia
In Pictures Case of murdered Aboriginal schoolboy has ‘shocked’ the nation
-
Multiple explosions in Kyiv after Crimea bridge attack
Speed Read President Zelenskyy says Moscow is ‘trying to wipe us off the face of the Earth’
