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Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
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WITNESS and its local partners in Rio joined forces with Amnesty International to call on the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to take a stand against the forced evictions of communities in the name of the Rio 2016 Olympics.
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After the IOC declined to meet with civil society groups in Rio, local activists and victims of forced evictions gathered on November 11 to hand-deliver a letter and videos to IOC members visiting Rio.
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Antonieta - Activist, arbitrarily evicted in May
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We came here today to fight for affected communities and fulfill the goals of our project with WITNESS.
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We're taking advantage of the fact the IOC is in Rio today
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to deliver a letter and a few videos so that they know about the irregular evictions that are happening in Rio.
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And so they can take action for this to be a clean Olympics.
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We're going to wait for them to come out (of the hotel) to approach them.
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We'll try to hand them the letter as they're getting into the car.
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Laura - Activist
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I just tried delivering the letter to the mayor of Lausanne
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and to another person that had an IOC name-tag,
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but when I asked if I could leave the letter with them,
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they said no, that they had no interest.
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I said I would leave it anyway, and they just left it on the table and got up and walked away.
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I think we could try again...
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Unable to deliver the letter at the hotel, the activists decide to try one more time.
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We're persistently going to the Chapéu Mangueira (community) to deliver the letter to them.
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They need to know what's been done to us.
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Outside of Brazil, they always talk about how wonderful the World Cup and Olympics are for Rio de Janeiro,
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but that's a big lie.
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For all that to happen, many homes and lives are being destroyed. As for the legacy -
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All the homes being destroyed and transformed for the World Cup and Olympics,
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will anything be useful to us afterwards?
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At the Chapéu Mangueira community, the activists catch up with representatives of the Municipal Olympic Company and delegates from the World Union of Olympic Cities during a technical field visit.
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They take advantage of a pause to introduce Antonieta.
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Vitor - Epistomancia Collective
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Watch the reaction of this man, Bernardo Carvalho, director of the Municipal Olympic Company in Rio.
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Bernardo and his colleague try to prevent the letter from being delivered to a reporter, but activists still manage to deliver it.
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Where did you live?
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Largo do Campinho.
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Where is that?
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(International Journalist)
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Jacarepaguá, it was evicted...
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I'm very happy because we came here to deliver the letter to the Olympics organizers.
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We managed to deliver it, and now we're going to wait for them to read it and take action.
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We have faith that they'll at least be aware of some of the harm being caused by the Olympics.
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How the Olympics has hurt many people.
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I know that many good things will happen because of the World Cup and Olympics,
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but they need to change the way they treat communities during evictions and expropriations.
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Later that day, the activists returned to the hotel to deliver copies of the letters and DVDs to the
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IOC representatives that did not attend the Chapéu Mangueira visit.
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A collaboration between WITNESS and Amnesty International, Comitê Popular Rio Copa e Olimpíadas, Conselho Popular do Rio de Janeiro, Movimento Nacional de Luta por Moradia.
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Produced by
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A very special thank you to Antonieta for courageously sharing her story.
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The campaign continues at: blog.witness.org and portalpopulardacopa.org
