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| Rebellion kills 7 teens at Brazilian jail |
| By Associated Press |
| Published: 10/04/2004 |
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Seven teenagers were beaten to death and five others were injured in a rebellion at a juvenile detention center in southern Brazil, police and witnesses said Sept. 24. The seven were killed in a settling of scores between rivals at the Sao Francisco Education Center in Piraquara, about 420 miles southwest of Rio, according to a police officer who asked not to be named. The Rev. Roque Zimmerman, the Parana state secretary of Labor and Social Welfare, was summoned to help end the uprising and confirmed the violence was between inmates. The rebellion began late Sept. 23, when some 160 inmates broke windows, trashed the center and set fire to mattresses to demand better conditions, the government news agency Agencia Brasil reported. Firefighters put out the blaze and found the bodies of four teenagers who had been beaten to death, the agency said. A police search turned up three more bodies. Television footage showed the destroyed center and recorded the screams and threats of clashing inmates. Some inmates ripped iron bars from the walls, bludgeoned their enemies and laid waste to the center, Zimmerman said. The cause of the uprising was a mystery, he said. The youth center is the showpiece of the Piraquara prison complex, the largest in Parana state with 169 cells. But the adult prison has had problems - in 2001, inmates killed a guard and took 21 others hostage to demand the transfer of their leaders. Prison rebellions occur frequently in Brazil, where overcrowding, poor conditions and gang wars are common. |
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