Brazilian students protest over inflation

Joe Leahy:

A series of student protests against bus fare rises in São Paulo have turned increasingly violent, bringing chaos to the centre of South America's largest city and highlighting discontent with inflation in Brazil.

Police fired rubber bullets and tear gas to stop protesters occupying the city's main thoroughfare, Avenida Paulista, disrupting evening traffic and leaving office workers stuck in their buildings. There were similar clashes in Rio de Janeiro and Porto Alegre in Brazil's south.

In Sâo Paulo, 232 people were detained and 12 officers hurt, police said, while figures for the number of protesters injured were not yet available. "There were [tear gas] bombs landing on all sides," said a protester, Bruna Gisi Martins de Almeirda, a student at the University of São Paulo. "I took one [rubber] bullet in the leg and one in the arm."

The intensity and violence of the protests, which follow those in Turkey and were dubbed by one economist as Brazil's "tropical spring", are uncommon for a country that has enjoyed a decade of economic growth and represent a new challenge for President Dilma Rousseff.

Related: US student loan bubble.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at June 16, 2013 12:24 AM
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