Plans to surround a Rio de Janeiro slum with a 650m-long concrete barrier have come under fire from environmentalists and human rights activists.
Brazil authorities say the US$436,000 “ecobarrier,” which would encircle part of the famous Dona Marta slum, is intended to protect the nearby Atlantic rainforest from illegal occupation as well as to improve security and living conditions for slum residents.
As tenders for construction of the 3m-high wall opened on Monday, critics claimed the project was a form of “social apartheid,” comparing it to Israel’s security barrier.
SEGREGATION
“This is something that is very similar to what Israel does to the Palestinians and to what happened in South Africa,” said Mauricio Campos, from the Rio human rights organization Network of Communities Against Violence.
He said a wall would serve only to “segregate” slum residents from the rest of society.
The wall is expected to be completed by the end of this year and, according to reports in the local press, may be followed by similar barriers around Rio’s other slums, known as favelas. In a statement, the state governor, Sergio Cabral, who ordered the “eco-limit” fence to be built, said it was part of moves by his administration to improve living standards and protect residents from the armed gangs that control many of Rio’s 600 or so slums.
“What has happened in Rio de Janeiro over the last two decades has been the passivity of authorities in relation to the uncontrolled growth of the slums,” he said.
Such walls would, Cabral said, help the city deal with “drug trafficking and vigilantes, [by] putting limits on uncontrolled growth.”
FAVELA IN FILM
Dona Marta is home to an estimated 7,500 people. The favela was the setting for an award-winning documentary about cocaine by the British film-maker Angus Macqueen, as well as a 1996 Michael Jackson music video directed by Spike Lee.
Jackson’s producers were forced to negotiate access with the local drug traffickers. Since last November, however, the shantytown has been under 24-hour police occupation as part of a state government initiative to make Dona Marta a “model favela.”
The pilot project aims to rid the favelas of traffickers using a mixture of military force and “hearts and minds” community policing. A soccer pitch was recently opened in Dona Marta as part of a redevelopment program, which includes new houses as well as the controversial wall.
Rio’s environmentalists say that unless low-cost housing options are given to the poor who live in the favelas they will continue to encroach on the hillsides of the city and into the surrounding rainforest.
In months, Lo Yuet-ping would bid farewell to a centuries-old village he has called home in Hong Kong for more than seven decades. The Cha Kwo Ling village in east Kowloon is filled with small houses built from metal sheets and stones, as well as old granite buildings, contrasting sharply with the high-rise structures that dominate much of the Asian financial hub. Lo, 72, has spent his entire life here and is among an estimated 860 households required to move under a government redevelopment plan. He said he would miss the rich history, unique culture and warm interpersonal kindness that defined life in
AERIAL INCURSIONS: The incidents are a reminder that Russia’s aggressive actions go beyond Ukraine’s borders, Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said Two NATO members on Sunday said that Russian drones violated their airspace, as one reportedly flew into Romania during nighttime attacks on neighboring Ukraine, while another crashed in eastern Latvia the previous day. A drone entered Romanian territory early on Sunday as Moscow struck “civilian targets and port infrastructure” across the Danube in Ukraine, the Romanian Ministry of National Defense said. It added that Bucharest had deployed F-16 warplanes to monitor its airspace and issued text alerts to residents of two eastern regions. It also said investigations were underway of a potential “impact zone” in an uninhabited area along the Romanian-Ukrainian border. There
A French woman whose husband has admitted to enlisting dozens of strangers to rape her while she was drugged on Thursday told his trial that police had saved her life by uncovering the crimes. “The police saved my life by investigating Mister Pelicot’s computer,” Gisele Pelicot told the court in the southern city of Avignon, referring to her husband — one of 51 of her alleged abusers on trial — by only his surname. Speaking for the first time since the extraordinary trial began on Monday, Gisele Pelicot, now 71, revealed her emotion in almost 90 minutes of testimony, recounting her mysterious
The governor of Ohio is to send law enforcement and millions of dollars in healthcare resources to the city of Springfield as it faces a surge in temporary Haitian migrants. Ohio Governor Mike DeWine on Tuesday said that he does not oppose the Temporary Protected Status program under which about 15,000 Haitians have arrived in the city of about 59,000 people since 2020, but said the federal government must do more to help affected communities. On Monday, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost directed his office to research legal avenues — including filing a lawsuit — to stop the federal government from sending