Demonstrations in 2013 and 2014: how the state used criminal justice to silence protests

In 2013 and 2014, Brazil saw its streets taken over by historic social protests, followed by intense and systematic state repression. In her master's research, Sofia Rolim, who holds a master's degree and is currently a doctoral student at the São Paulo School of Law (FGV Direito SP), analyzed how the legal system was mobilized to break up demonstrations, with an emphasis on the case of the “23 World Cup detainees” in Rio de Janeiro.

In her analysis, Sofia highlighted the emblematic case of the “23 World Cup prisoners” in Rio de Janeiro, showing how the legal system used accusations of criminal association and repressive practices - many of which originated in the military dictatorship - to dismantle social mobilizations.

The research reveals tactics that invest in the strategic incapacitation of protesters, seeking to prevent the protest from taking place or certain people from participating in it, and the construction of narratives that seek to legitimize the repression. At the same time, state actors leave the issue of police violence out of the debate. According to Sofia, this approach weakens the civic space and has a negative impact on Brazilian democracy.

The study is part of a broader analysis on the control of public demonstrations and seeks to understand how these practices influence freedom of expression and political participation in the country.

Read the full interview below:

Your research object revolves around how legal tools were mobilized by the state to repress social mobilizations, particularly street protests in that context of June 2013 and 2014. tell us more about it?

In 2013, mass protests around the country marked the beginning of a cycle of protests, which triggered different manifestations of state repression. One of the forms of repression, involving various actors in the criminal justice system, was the criminalization of protesters.

My master's research carried out a case study on the criminalization process of the “23 prisoners of the World Cup”, in which a group of protesters in Rio de Janeiro were investigated and convicted in the first degree for the crime of criminal association, in a process marked by arbitrariness.

What are the research objectives?

The work aims to contribute to the literature dedicated to examining criminalization processes in the context of protest cycles, identifying the tactics and interpretive frameworks mobilized by the repressive actors - in this case, the police, the Public Prosecutor's Office and the Judiciary.

Through documentary analysis of the complete criminal case file and the narratives of criminalized protesters, we describe the procedural flow and the main events throughout the process. We then identify the mobilization of certain repressive tactics, associated with the policing model based on strategic incapacitation, in which the aim is to prevent the protest from taking place or to neutralize people identified as suspects, even before any disruptive action takes place, as well as tactics with historical roots in criminalization processes that took place during the military dictatorship.

As a way of justifying and legitimizing criminalizing repressive action, these state actors invest heavily in a narrative centered on the idea that the accused are dangerous people who have committed violent acts. When examining the production of repressive interpretive frameworks by the actors of the criminal justice system, we see the relevance of the themes of aggression against police officers and damage to property as the elements that give meaning to the idea of violence, which is central to the criminalizing frameworks. In the police interpretation, the type of violence that would be planned or carried out against agents of the security forces is portrayed more seriously, while the frames produced by the judiciary stand out for their representation of typically defensive objects, such as shields and masks, as if they were attack weapons.

Considering that the framing process carried out by the state is not limited to the field of perception, as it is an operation that seeks to exercise control by delimiting what can and cannot be represented, we also pay attention to what is left out of the frames produced. We identified that the frames promoted by state agents relegate the issue of violence committed by police against demonstrators to the field of non-representativeness, systematically excluding these acts from the narratives presented. This has a profound impact on the interpretation of the protesters' behavior and produces a division between subjects with the right to defend themselves and subjects who are seen as essentially agents of violence.

Could you tell us more about your doctoral thesis?

The research examines the ways in which street demonstrations were controlled in Rio de Janeiro during 2013 and 2014, a period marked by massive protests and the spread of international protest control tactics, facilitated by the context of the World Cup, which had a profound impact on the organization and policy of repression in Brazil. Focusing on Rio de Janeiro, the study seeks to understand what has changed and what has remained in protest control practices, as well as investigating the processes that led to these transformations.

What perspectives did the research find?

The research analyzes how the repression was conducted, identifying the actors involved, the tactics and strategies employed and the arenas of dispute, highlighting the continuities and changes in the actions of the repressive agents and the processes of dispute and decision-making that shaped these practices.

The study considers the political-institutional dimension, examining the actions and disputes within the Executive and Legislative branches; the organizational dimension of the police, exploring how the policing of demonstrations was incorporated into public order control routines, taking into account institutional culture and operational practices; and the interactional dimension, analyzing the coevolution between forms of protest and repression, observing how demonstrators and police adapted tactics in response to each other's strategies in the search for tactical advantage.

What motivated you to talk about this?

The possibility of protesting and making demands in a non-institutional way is an essential instrument for winning rights and promoting social justice, and is protected by various fundamental rights and principles of the democratic system. However, in contemporary democratic practice, both in Brazil and in other countries, there has been growing repression and control over non-institutional forms of social participation, resulting in the progressive reduction of “civic space” - that is, the political-institutional environment that enables people to self-organize and influence politics. The mass protests that reached their peak in June 2013 had significant political and institutional effects in Brazil, including marked changes in the ways of protesting and repressing demonstrations. These transformations continue to impact civic space in the country, but we still know little about how these reorganizations and innovations occurred, and what factors motivated them. My doctoral research seeks to shed light on some of these aspects, contributing to a deeper understanding of this process.
 

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To find out more about the Academic Doctorate in Law and Development at FGV Direito SP, visit the website.

This article is part of the series Ideas that Transform. 

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