“No more massacres, police in the favelas, Israel in Palestine!”
This was the chant at the protest in Rio de Janeiro, yesterday, on the 31st of October.
On the 28 October 2025, the northern zone of Complexo do Alemão and Complexo da Penha in Rio de Janeiro were transformed into a war-zone. A massive operation by the state security forces of Rio de Janeiro involving around 2,500 officers was launched against the criminal faction Comando Vermelho (Red Command) (Al Jazeera). At least 132 people were killed, making it the deadliest police operation in the city’s history (EL PAÍS).
In the middle of the night of the 29th, more than fifty bodies were carried by residents from wooded hillsides and laid out in a public square in the Complexo da Penha, so family members could attempt to identify them – without any support from the State. Many of the dead arrived stripped to their underwear, their names unknown.
Photos and videos by Fabio Teixeira, October 31st, 2025, in Rio de Janeiro.
The protest
On the 31st of October, a protest for peace emerged in Rio, drawing residents from the favelas, young people, families of the dead, activists and human-rights defenders. The energy was urgent and raw – banners calling for an end to the massacre, for the identification of the victims, and justice for favelas fluttered in the wind. Parents sat on curbs, weeping, standing in silence, heads bowed. The collective trauma was palpable.
People in Rio and nearby communities speak of shock and mourning, but also of anger and resolve. The protest was a statement that the Government will not get away with this brutality. We will demand names, identification, legal support for families. Because without that, there is no justice, only erasure.
The massacre laid bare how the State treats the bodies (and lives) of mostly young, Black, low-income men from the favelas. After the operation, government officials declared it a success, but residents can see that this decades-long murderous strategy of police operations, which clearly only worsen in casualties, are yet to show results. And will never show results in combatting organized crime, because it doesn’t address the root of the problem; the systemic subjugation of favelados and institutionalized racism. All it does is satisfy a bloodthirsty supremacist ideology of ethnic cleansing and the extermination of a contingent of the population which isn’t useful to the upholding of the capitalist system.
Those people killed were human, and they deserve dignity, humanity, and rights. Under international human-rights law, the State has the duty of identifying the victims, notify the families, provide legal and psychosocial support, and, most importantly, conduct an independent investigation. These obligations are not optional, and are yet to be seen. The absence of such response, the failure to properly identify the dead, to disgracefully treat the situation as “good thugs are dead thugs,” signals institutional violence in unprecedented levels.
Let us be clear: even if every single person killed in this operation were gang-members (which remains unproven), this does not relieve the State of its responsibility. These are young people, overwhelmingly Black and from the favelas. They were stormed, trapped, shot, stabbed, decapitated, without trial or due process. When a segment of the population (defined by race and class) is treated as an enemy to be exterminated, we are entering the realm of genocide.
The narrative offered by the State, ‘A favelado deserves to die because he is part of an enemy parallel state’ mirrors other genocidal narratives globally. It is said Palestinians deserve to die because of Hamas; favelados deserve to die because of organized crime and gangs like Comando Vermelho. Even the weapons used by in Rio include Israeli-manufactured rifles (such as the IWI Arad supplied to Rio’s State Police) (riotimesonline.com, monitordooriente.com). In both cases, people are dehumanized, stripped of rights, excluded from the symbolic order. That is the logic of genocide, when violence is normalized against the unwanted “other.”
What Lula said
President Lula sparked controversy by stating that “drug traffickers are victims of users too, there are people who sell drugs because people buy them, and people who buy them because people sell.”(veja.abril.com.br) Opponents said this amounted to trivializing the crime of trafficking. Yet the statement points to something deeper: a recognition that those forced into the drug economy are themselves victims of a system of subjugation, inequality and consumption by the privileged.
In the context of this most recent massacre, the implication is stark. Young men reduced to gun-fodder, fighting a war they had little choice over, part of shadow economies generated by absent opportunities, while middle-class and elite consumers remain protected from scrutiny and consequences. The president’s words should push us to see beyond the ‘gangster’ or ‘thug’ label and ask, Why are so many lives considered expendable in the favelas?
Why this operation fails
The logic of the mega-raid is cruelly simple, to deploy overwhelming force, seize weapons, declare victory. But decades of such operations in Rio and Brazil show that it doesn’t break the cycle of violent crime. Research has shown that police in Rio have killed in-operation more people each year than police in the entire US have. The trauma from this violence ripples outwards, families are shattered, children orphaned, communities terrified and distrustful. The protest for peace in Rio is not simply about this one operation; it is the cry against decades of militarized policing, racialized violence and structural neglect.
A call for justice and humanity
In the aftermath of 28-29 October, the demands are clear.
All victims must be identified; families informed; legal, financial and psychosocial support provided.
A full, transparent investigation on how and why people were killed.
An end to statements that criminalize entire communities instead of addressing root causes of inequality, racism, lack of opportunities, marginalization, drug consumption by the privileged, corruption in governmental institutions that cover-up misconduct and excessive force.
Policing must be replaced by social investment and a reconstruction of the social contract to dismantle its structures of institutional racism.
If we expect the world to condemn violence elsewhere, to stand for so-called civilized countries abiding by human rights, we must look at ourselves first. White supremacy and State-sponsored violence continue their genocidal logic in Brazil, in Gaza, everywhere.
For those of us who are not directly impacted, the fight isn’t over. We must do everything we can to support the affected communities, demand justice, challenge the narratives of extermination. This is not only a crisis in Rio; it is a mirror held up to the globe.
Mirna Wabi-Sabi
Mirna is a Brazilian writer, editor at Sul Books and founder of Plataforma9. She is the author of the book Anarcho-transcreation and producer of several other titles under the P9 press.