ABRAPO Issues a Note Denouncing the Massacre in Rio de Janeiro

We hereby share an unofficial translation of a note published by ABRAPO against the massacre in the favela do Alemão, where 130 people were murdered by the police operations.

PUBLIC STATEMENT OF REPUDIATION OF THE ALEMÃO MASSACRE

The Brazilian Association of People’s Lawyers – Gabriel Pimenta (ABRAPO) publicly express its strongest repudiation of the cowardly massacre that occurred on 10/28/2025, in the Complexos do Alemão and Penha, resulting in 121 deaths and a dozen injuries, at the time of writing this note (already reported as 130 deaths), in a butchery never seen before.

With each justification from the police authorities and the State Government, corroborated by the media monopoly, the truth becomes more blatant.

The so praised effectiveness and military success of the “operation” were, in fact, due to a prohibited siege, known as the “Hamburg Cauldron”, which cornered the alleged bandits in the forest area at the top of the Serra da Misericórdia, which, thus, surrounded on all sides, were “neutralized”.

Many say that a security policy is lacking, but it exists, and it is the one we are accustomed to, which kills and imprisons massively, when, in fact, there should be a policy of guaranteeing rights.

What happened in Rio de Janeiro is a war crime, even if it is considered as an asymmetric, irregular reality.

The fact that in theory most of the dead were from the Comando Vermelho does not authorize a single summary execution, by extrajudicial, illegal, and arbitrary means, let alone the murder of a hundred people.

This massacre of the poor people occurs in an atmosphere of a reactionary and fascist offensive Worldwide, including Brazil, where for over a decade, legislation has been strengthening, in theory and practice, in an endless punitive campaign, which contributes to a set of deviations in the application of the law, and even more, to mass incarceration, which reaches stratospheric numbers in the Country, with almost a million prisoners.

The Federal Government, as a false left, has always been contributing to this with the creation of the National Force; the Law on Criminal Organizations; the Anti-Terrorism Law; the Anti-Crime Package; the Law on Crimes against the Democratic Rule of Law; and now, the Anti-Gang Law, which, under the pretext of combating crime, ends up serving a cruel and violent police policy, which ends up targeting the poor people, also criminalizing social movements and people’s struggles, as occurs in the struggle for land for those who live and work on it.

Additionally the authorities responsible for this abominable massacre occupy the media, vociferating their fascist and anti-people ideology, making prose for those who still believe that “a good thug is a dead thug”.

ABRAPO repudiates and denounces this new barbarity perpetrated by the police and the Rio de Janeiro State Government and calls on similar entities, social movements, honest democrats and intellectuals, students, and masses to unite in search of a rigorous and independent investigation that can unmask this farce set up by the Government and the hegemonic media, and unveil the true face of this tragic and cowardly massacre that occurred in RJ, including international observers committed to the defense of human rights and people’s rights.

We will remain vigilant and on standby.

For an independent investigation of the massacre!

For an end to the slaughter to the poor people!

For an end to summary extrajudicial executions!

Down with Cláudio Castro and his nefarious policies!