Frontline against the rise in tarifs,São Paulo , January 14, 2016.Flickr/dfactory. Some rights reserved.Here we go again.
Earlier this month, public demonstrations turned violent in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and other Brazilian cities. It started out innocently enough: people initially gathered peacefully to march against yet another hike in public transportation fares. But the demonstration quickly dissolved into chaos. Harrowing images of masked military police corralling protesters with tear gas and batons were splashed across national media outlets and social media feeds. Once again Brazil's security forces were accused of using disproportionate and excessive force.
Brazil has been here before. In 2013, the military police responded in similar fashion to student protests launched in the wake of a modest price hike in bus fares. The crackdown by police ignited what quickly became one of the largest popular protests in the country's history. Then, as during the more recent protests, Brazil's military and civil police forces were over-stretched and on edge. Today, however, the morale of the security forces is especially low due to widespread budget cuts introduced in the wake of a severe economic downturn.
