Witzel Blames Human Rights Advocates for Death of Six Youths: “This is on you.”

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The governor of Rio de Janeiro, Wilson Witzel, criticized Friday, August 16th, “human rights advocates” whom he blamed for the deaths of six youths this week.

“When I say that whoever is carrying a rifle has to be shot, several human rights defenders stand up; then when they [criminals] kill the innocent, they raise the victim’s photo, saying that it was the police who killed them,” he said.

“But when I say that you have to shoot anyone with a rifle, they stand up against it. And it’s these people walking around carrying rifles in the community that shoot innocent people,” he said.

“People who call themselves human rights advocates, “pseudo defenders” of human rights, do not want the police to kill those carrying rifles. Because if you don’t kill those carrying rifles, it’s the innocent who will die,” he said.

“So it’s on you, human rights advocates. The corpses of these young people are not on me. They’re on you because you don’t let the police do the work that needs to be done,” he remarked.

Witzel stressed the importance of the use of helicopters for the swiftness of operations and compared the fight against violence with the fight against Nazism.

“Call the experts and ask them how we ended Nazism in Europe. How do we put an end to the tragedy of having people burned in ovens, of dying in concentration camps? There was no leniency with Nazism. Germany was bombed, people died. We do not want people to die. We want to prevent it. And we have already prevented 800 deaths. Are we going to stop? Are we going to let organized crime take over again?”, he compared, saying that he is on the side of good.

Witzel also pledged 12,000 additional state police officers on the streets by 2022.

The governor questioned the authenticity of letters sent by children from Maré that depicted violent scenes.

“We will assess whether those drawings were indeed made by children. Especially because those who know and study organized crime, as I do, know that organized crime is capable of anything,” he said, stating that the region lives in a “state of exception.”

Over 1,500 letters from Maré residents were delivered to state courts on Monday, August 12th.

The initiative — devised by the civil institution Redes da Maré — demanded that the State Court of Appeals re-evaluate the dismissal of a case that established protective measures for the population of the cluster of favelas.

Some of the messages written by children include drawings showing helicopters over houses and police officers shooting at residents.

“If you look at one of the letters with a helicopter, you see a person with a rifle looking at the helicopter. Look at the portrait of this reality. Is that someone with a rifle looking at the helicopter to shoot the helicopter?”, Witzel points out.

The presiding Judge of the Rio Appellate Court, Cláudio de Mello Tavares, had already wondered whether the letters sent to the body were genuine or whether they could have been “ordered”.

“The judge of the case needs to assess if those letters were really written by children, if they were ordered, if there is something behind it, if it is really the people of Maré who are calling for this to stop, for this violence to stop,” he said in an interview on Wednesday, August 14th.

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