Ten years ago, at the beginning of June, activists took to the streets in major Brazilian cities to protest against a 20-cent increase in public transportation fares. Grassroots protests in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Porto Alegre were brutally repressed by the police, with hundreds arrested.
While much of the mainstream media treated the protesters as vandals, the population took the demonstrators’ side. In one emblematic example, daytime news program Brasil Urgente — home to law-and-order values and a bleeds-it-leads sensationalism — held a live poll of its largely conservative viewership, showing scenes of blocked roads and public disorder and asking if those watching at home were in favor of the protests.
Around 60 percent said yes.
Clearly thinking this was a mistake, the program’s anchor restarted the poll and rephrased the question, which now read: Are you in favor of protests with vandalism?
The result? 70 percent said yes.
Massive protests came in the days that followed, some with more than a million people on the street.
The June 2013 demonstrations certainly changed the country, though many have their own views about in exactly what way.
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