[dropcap]H[/dropcap]UNDREDS of people marched Saturday in Brazil to demand justice for a young Congolese immigrant who was beaten to death in a bar on a Rio de Janeiro beach.
Moise Kabagambe, 24, died on the night of January 24 at the bar where he worked in the upscale Barra da Tijuca neighborhood, allegedly after demanding that his boss pay him overdue wages, according to authorities and family members.
Carrying placards with pictures of his face and messages against racism and xenophobia, the protesters gathered around the beach-front bar in western Rio.
‘This is about the death of a foreigner who was our brother – because he was Black. We are here to show our resistance, to show that we will not allow what happened to go unpunished,’ 19-year-old student Bruna Lira told AFP.
Her T-shirt bore the word ‘Anti-racist.’
Congolese immigrants dressed in white sang and danced as part of the protest. Members of Kabagambe’s family were in attendance.
Other protests in his name were held in Sao
Paulo, Salvador, Belo Horizonte and Brasilia.
Kabagambe arrived in Brazil in 2011, fleeing the armed conflict that has racked his native Democratic Republic of Congo.
Family members said the beating came after he insisted his manager pay him overdue wages for two days of work.
Brother Sammy Kabagambe told AFP that police showed family members security camera footage on which the manager could be seen calling in other assailants. At least three men brutally beat the victim with clubs and a baseball bat, relatives said.
Police have detained three suspects.
‘Brazil only values light-eyed foreigners who speak English,’ rights activist Douglas Alencar said at the Rio protest.
Kabagambe’s death sparked a wave of indignation on social media, with artists, athletes and others demanding justice.
‘It’s a great injustice,’ a Congolese
friend of his, Chico Mayamba, told AFP. ‘The money that Moise earned working here was to help his family.’
Rio Mayor Eduardo Paes announced Saturday that the spot where Kabagambe was killed will be turned into a memorial honouring him and the Congolese culture.
In Brazil, a huge country of 213 million with the largest Black population outside of Africa, more than 50 percent of people identify as Black or mixed race – and they suffer disproportionately from violence, unemployment and poverty.
