Brazilians mourn slain Rio rights activist, councillor

Brazilians mourned yesterday for a Rio de Janeiro councilwoman and outspoken critic of police brutality who was shot in the city centre in an assassination-style killing.Some 1,000 people stood under the tropical sun outside City Hall to greet the coffin of Marielle Franco, 38, who was murdered late on Wednesday.More than 30,000 people had signaled their intention to attend a protest rally later in the day outside the Rio state assembly.The attack, coming despite army intervention to control Rio’s soaring crime rate, sparked immediate outrage around Latin America’s biggest country.As a black woman who campaigned for the rights of Rio’s poorest and against police excesses, Franco stood out on the region’s male and white-dominated political scene.She was hit by several bullets after the attacker pulled up next to her white hatch back in central Rio and opened fire, possibly after having tailed her car for several kilometres, local media reported.Her driver was also killed and an aide was injured in the fusillade.The assailant or assailants then drove off, without attempting to rob their victims.President Michel Temer called Franco’s killing “an attack on democracy and the rule of law” and promised full help from the federal authorities.Amnesty International demanded a rigorous probe focusing on “the context, motive and responsibility” for the killing.The UN’s human rights office condemned “the deeply shocking murder”.Social media lit up with tributes to Franco.Legendary Brazilian singer Elza Soares, who is black, tweeted that this was “one of the few times when I can’t find my voice. I’m in shock. Horrified”.Another famed Brazilian musician, Caetano Veloso, tweeted: “I am sad, so sad, very sad.”Franco, 38, was born and raised in a network of favelas, or slums, called Mare, one of the city’s most violent areas.A member of the leftist Socialism and Liberty Party (PSOL), she got the fifth highest vote count in Rio’s 2016 council elections.She had also become a leading voice against violence meted out by Rio’s police force, which is routinely accused by major human rights organisations of extrajudicial killings, falsifying evidence and corruption.Although police violence is widely acknowledged, there is also sympathy for a force taking extraordinarily high casualties: 134 officers killed in Rio state in 2017.With Rio residents sick of runaway crime, Franco’s highlighting of police problems was not always popular – though it endeared her to the often forgotten inhabitants of the favelas.“She did good. She was happy with her mission. She never said anything about being threatened,” said Laura Pitangui, a physiotherapist who last saw Franco five days ago. “She was a very supportive woman.”