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