Deputy who fought milicias in Rio got five death threats in ten days and plans to take refuge in Europe

State representative (“deputado estadual”), Marcelo Freixo (PSOL-RJ),
who presided over a parliamentary investigation of milícia control
(“CPI das Milicias”) in Rio slums in 2008 says that, unfortunately,
since then the number of milicias in Rio has actually increased. The CPI
das Milicias indicted over two hundred people, called for probes into
the activities of more than another thousand and resulted in the arrests
of around five hundred suspects. But Freixo says that the number of
areas under milicia control has been growing every year.

“The solution is to break the economic backbone of the milicias. That
means stopping the vans [the alternative transportation system run by
the milicias], the illegal hookups to cable TV and the distribution of
cooking gas. These illegal activities make it possible for them to have
money to buy people and kill people. What is not possible is that after
the murder of a judge radical action against the milicias is not taken.”
[on August 11, a Rio de Janeiro judge handling investigations into
milicia activities was assassinated].

Freixo announced that he has been receiving almost daily death threats
and will accept an offer by Amnesty International to spend some time in
Europe with his family. “But, I will return soon,” he declared.

At a public act denouncing Freixo’s situation, the actor Wagner Moura,
who plays a part in a film about the battle against the milicias (“Tropa
de Elite,” which is Brazil’s nominee for the Oscar for Best Foreign
Film this year), said it was unacceptable that death threats were still a
part of Brazilian life in this day and age.

Also at the public act, the president of the Bar Association (“OAB”)
Human Rights Commission, Margarida Pressburger, declared that death
threats against citizens who combat crime cannot be accepted anymore.