TO ALL MY INTERNATIONAL FRIENDS

I don't know if some of you have read or watched, on your local media, anything about the Brazilian protests, but I'd like to inform you about it. If you could take the time to read this, it would really matter to me and all the other Brazilians fighting for a change.

It all started when the Government declared that the public transportation (buses and the underground) would once more get an increase: from R$3,00 to R$3,20. Ok, maybe you are thinking "wow, all that fuss because of 20 cents?". It may have started because of the price raise, but it's much more than that now.
An organization called "Passe Livre" (Free pass) started to put together manifestations in order to show the Government that the people would no longer stand still and without reaction to the misuse and disrespect towards their money.

The first protest was not so big, but then the organization had more time and more visibility to call more people to the streets. Unfortunately our Governors did not react well to that, and decided to oppose the next public objection with the Military Police and the Shock Troop (a part of the Police that is supposed to control manifestations with violent outcomes, but instead chooses to follow orders like "just shoot everybody who is there with rubber bullets"). However these officers are not prepared to deal with the crowd, and end up using excessive violence against the protesters.

If you sympathize with us PLEASE take a picture like this, let's show the world whats going on 

The demonstrations
last Thursday (13) had many deplorable scenes like: journalists being attacked (one of them was shot in the eye by a rubber bullet), people who were offering flowers to the Police were brutally assaulted, as were those just holding posters, a group of manifestants that were marching and screaming "no violence" had teargas bombs thrown at. These incidents made people all over the country, and even the world, get off their sofas and go to the streets to show that we are not gonna take it anymore, all the corruption, the failures on the field of education and health care, the abuse from the Governors.
So on June 17th we woke up, more than 250 thousand people went out of their comfy homes and took the streets of more than 12 capitals and 16 small cities (not to mention some protests in other countries) to fight for more than the change of 20 cents; to fight for our freedom of speech; to fight for investments in education and health care instead of new stadiums; to fight for the end of Police abuse; to fight for justice; to fight for the end of corruption and impunity; to fight for a CHANGE. The Governors were pressioned to remove the Shock Troop from the streets, at least in Sao Paulo. Consequently all things went orderly and peacefully (although  some other cities had some episodes of violence, but it did not takeaway the cause's credit).

Yesterday we, once again, took the streets, and we are not gonna stop until we see these changes, starting with the public transportation prices. And guess what? Today as I'm writing this message the Government just announced the reestablishment of the former prices. I believe that after these experience the Brazilian people will keep their eyes opened to whatever threats that will come along and our politicians should now that they can no longer fool the lambs, we are now lions ready to attack.

Many of you may not know that from 1964 up to 1985 Brazil lived under a military dictatorship. Until the nation decided they had enough and went out to fight for their rights, and so they did it.As a result they succeeded to change the situation. Nowadays Brazilian schools teach this to the kids and in the future I hope my children will learn about how 20 cents started a revolution.

1- peaceful march on Monday  2- injured journalist  3- protesters offer flowers to the shock troop, that attacked them after it

About the World Cup and the Olympic Games - if you are thinking about coming to Brazil, DON'T! I could go on and on about the reasons why not to, but this video sums up the whole issue please watch it.