SAO PAULO, Feb 23 — Sao Paulo police surrounded demonstrators protesting Brazil’s spending on the World Cup today after bank branches and automated teller machines were vandalised in the city’s downtown district.
The protest in central Sao Paulo’s Republica square started peacefully with demands for increased spending on education and accusations the soccer tournament is an elitist event, images broadcast by the Globo News TV channel showed. By nightfall hundreds of police had surrounded protesters after groups broke windows and damaged public telephones, the broadcast showed.
About 1,000 people joined the protest, and 120 suspected of vandalism were detained for questioning, Folha de S.Paulo newspaper said on its website, citing the military police.
The World Cup has become a symbol of discontent over government spending in a country with poor funding for health, education and urban transportation.
Brazil’s biggest protests in a generation erupted last June during the Confederations Cup, a warm-up event for this year’s tournament.
Those demonstrations, sparked by a rise in bus fares, drew more than a million people to the streets of Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and other major Brazilian cities.
FIFA, soccer’s governing body, said this week the threat of mass public protests returning to Brazil’s streets won’t interrupt the global sports event.
“FIFA is not feeling it’s the target,” the body’s security head, Ralf Mutschke, told a news conference in Florianopolis, Brazil, this week, as demonstrators protested outside.
“We are not hiding ourselves and our symbols. We are proud to be here and to celebrate the World Cup.” — Bloomberg
