On July 13 2021, a fight broke out between police officers and a Romani family in the municipality of Vitòria da Conquista. 4 people were killed, including 2 policemen. Brazilian Romani organisations are denouncing a wave of violent attacks against Roma people since the confrontation. Local human rights organisations indeed say that after the incident, the police has been promoting the hunt & massacre of the Romani families living in the region, whether or not they were involved in any way in the fight.
More than 20 people have now been shot & 6 (between the age of 13 and 28) have died since the confrontation occurred. The cars & homes of several Romani families have been set on fire, forcing them to leave in fear for their safety and those of their children. A twitter video is circulating right now of a 14 year old boy being shot and killed.
I'm Brazilian, I hadn't heard of this before this post but I'll try to give some more insight. It seems that first the cops were killed and that the cops think the murder was committed by 10 (!) - some sources say 8 - people from the Romani community. Two of those ten people died in the same fight (?) in which the hogs died. A third was killed by police - executed most likely - in a nearby city. A fourth one has been shot but is hospitalized. A 13 year old Romani boy whose brother is one of the suspects was shot inside a drugstore in retaliation. He was hospitalized but didn't survive. A 29 year old man was murdered because he was confused for a Romani person. There are claims that at least 15 people have been shot so far. Houses and cars owned by Romani people have been set on fire and destroyed. There are also claims that torture has taken place.
Sources in portuguese: [1] - [2]
I feel like Romani people are pretty well liked in Brazil, at least compared to how other nationalities perceive them, so this is pretty shocking. This is how """policing""" works here, though. They are a fucking State-backed amateur gang. I know this is true in any bourgeois state, especially colonized ones, but it's particularly egregious in Brazil. Looks like this specific instance of State terror is happening in the surroundings of Vitória da Conquista, but also probably in the state of Bahia as a whole as police forces are state-wide here.
All my solidarity with Romani people in Brazil and worldwide. This is a tragedy and we will win and change this.
I feel like Romani people are pretty well liked in Brazil
Is there a reason for that? Pretty much every other county I've been to with a Romani population they've been utterly despised.
Is there a reason for that?
Actually, yes! There was a very popular Brazilian soap opera which was centered on Romani people. I'd argue that for most people that is their only cultural reference to Romani people and it doesn't paint them in a negative light at all.
That said, it's not very often that the topic of Romani people comes up - as I said, the soap opera is the only access into Romani culture for most people - and I've never seen a Romani community or someone who identified as Romani, so I may have the wrong impression.I lived in a small city in the south of Brazil and my experience was the opposite, with people just casually expressing dislike for them.
Side note: Unsurprisingly, those same people dislike the indigenous people who live there aswell (almost 10% of the population, but most of them live in the reserve) and are not shy about using racial slurs against them.
When I lived in southern rural Brazil, most people I knew hated romani people and thought of them as "dirty freeloaders", "thieves", etc.
Whenever they were camping in town people would talk about it with open disdain.
Who would have thought this Bolsonaro guy was kinda fash, right? talk about out of left field
Repression and violence never seems to end for the Romani people, fuck all fascists. :fash-bash:
Fuck those bastards. Solidarity with the Romani of Brazil. If there's any way we can help aside from getting the word out let us know.
I’ll be on the lookout. I know of gofundme’s for Italian evicted Roma but have seen nothing thus far for Brazil
Will the pogroms ever end?
:desolate:
Fuck all cops and bootlickers, when the revolution comes I will make no excuses for the terror.
:guts-rage:
