Brazil – AND: One Year Since the Massacre in the Penha and Alemão Complexes
Featured image: Political illustration. Source: AND
One year after the massacre the military and civil police committed in the complexes Penha and Alemão and Rio de Janeiro, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has released a report on this, which was analyzed by A Nova Democracia (AND). The massacre left 123 dead, only four of them police.
On this day, October 28, 2025, the at least 2,500 police entered into the neighborhoods under the pretext of a series of search and arrest warrants, but in reality committed a massacre against the population. According to the report at least 75% of the victims were shot in the back.
It is notable that the operation was claimed to be against “organized crime,” but not one of the murdered was among the people with outstanding warrants, and the search warrant for the house of the reported leader of the group was not executed. Reports by neighbors also showed that this massacre did nothing to reduce the groups presence in the area.
When, in the aftermath the neighbors stood up against the massacre and demanded the police leave their neighborhoods, as well as demanding justice, the police attacked the people they were claiming to protect with tear gas and armored cars.
This massacre was then quickly covered up by the State. For instance even though 532 cameras had been given to the police to document the operation, not one of the deaths is seen in the 4,400 hours of footage analyzed by HRW. In the same vein so far only 12 charges have been filed against police, none of them involving the murders.
AND reported on a commemoration held on the anniversary of the massacre and also shared an interview with the sociologist José Cláudio Souza Alves, in which he denounces the increase of murders by the police in recent years. He underlines, that the third term of Lula, who has recently won the electoral farce to enter into his forth, was marked by an increase in the prison population, as well as an expansion and militarization of the prison system.
He goes on to analyze links between the State and the organized crime it pretends to combat, while in fact benefiting and profiting from it directly. In the same manner he denounces, that many who are recruited by the criminal organization do so due to the desperation about the abject poverty they are forced into by this system of exploitation.
AND underscores: “For democrats and revolutionaries, denouncing the crimes of the old State is linked to the struggle to transform the conditions that fuel recruitment. The revolt of poor youth against oppression needs to find combative and independent mobilization and organization , capable of confronting repression and fighting for the end of exploitative relations that are also reproduced in delinquent groups.”
You can find more coverage by AND about the massacre both on their website and channel on YouTube like the following analysis:
