 So next up we have Raul Santiago. So Raul is a resident of the complexo de Alemayo Favela, social entrepreneur, human rights activist, independent journal, and a social projects coordinator. In addition to his work with the colectivo, he also works with Movimentos, a collective of young people from the peripheries who are envisioning new drug policies that are informed by their own reality. So please join me in welcoming Raul. Good morning to all of you. I'm going to speak in Portuguese-Brazilian and I speak very fast, so I'm going to try to speak slowly to facilitate the translation. Well, I'm Raul Santiago. I live in this place, the complex of Alemão, a favela of Rio de Janeiro, the complex of Alemão is one of the most incredible places that I know. Incredible people, incredible stories, incredible ideas, powerful people. However, along the history of the peripheries of popular neighborhoods, poor neighborhoods of Rio de Janeiro and Brazil, the main drug policy that comes to us always comes through the security secretariat with an idea of war against drugs. So the war against drugs is the main public policy that came to this place, where I live. Violence policy, using drugs as a tool to control our bodies, to militarize poverty, to maintain inequality and to maintain a racist structure in Brazil. Drug policy in Brazil is the main tool of violence against people who live in that place. And the work I do in Rio de Janeiro, with some collectives, it goes through several reading and understanding about reduction of damage, because we work directly with people who are making abusive use of some substances still considered illicit in that country, but we also work with young people, with the impact of war on drugs in this reality. I'm going to pass here now a quick video. Do you have audio? I think so. Two helicopters, you're listening. You're going to pass here, close the door, don't talk here, guys. Damn it, look down, look down, look down, look down, damn it. I'm going to pass it again with audio from the beginning. Get in my direction. Damn it, share it, guys, share it. Come here, man. Look, another helicopter, two helicopters, you're listening, you're going to pass here, close the door, don't talk here, guys. Damn it, look down, look down, look down, damn it. Look down, damn it. Close the door. Well, this video was recorded by me. It must have been a little over a month ago. I was at home with my children in the German complex favela, and another day of public policy of the state began for the people who live in that space. There are drug wars taking place in practice, causing chaos and terror for us. We, in reality, from that place, receive this type of public policy. The idea of drug wars, where war is for us, is for that place, as a tool to maintain inequality, as a daily militarization of the people who live in that place, the violent control of poverty, the violent control of racial, the violent control of inequality, sends this type of public policy to us every day. That is a helicopter from the Military Police of Rio de Janeiro, which passed by shooting down. And as we can see, the structure of that place is humble cases, and a shot given by a helicopter that kills, hits, pierces, people, lures, every day. Yesterday, I couldn't be here in the morning. I really wanted to participate in the meeting in the morning, but all the people there in Rio de Janeiro, my relatives, my companions, were sending me messages because I was having another operation like this one in the favela. And then I have another quick video like this one, which is from yesterday in the morning while we were meeting here in Porto. When he shot, he hit the box, mom. He broke the box of the living room, a new oscillation. Everything there was in your bag. That happened yesterday in the morning while we were here, gathered in this event. Once again, the public policy of drug wars arrived in a repetitive way inside the favela. The gunmen were coming from a car like this one. There I am filming, I also do independent media work. This car is the armored vehicle. There are several of them, used by the police to do operations inside the favelas. Cars like this one, vehicles like this one, shoot. Various... There is a possibility of shooting with a firearm on several sides of the vehicle. For all parts of the vehicle, it is possible to put the rifle out and make shots. This is the policy of drug wars for our reality, of a Brazil that never discuss the reduction of damages, that does not guarantee a minimum for us to think in other ways to deal with drugs, but every day, every day, takes this kind of reality to the people who live in the place where I live. This is the only and main and repetitive with a lot of political investment about drugs that the State continuously sends inside the favelas and peripheries of Brazil. In this reality, yesterday, I received this message, I brought it here for you, from the various groups that we have with the residents, to highlight how the war that only takes place in specific spaces also says a lot about the reality of the inequality of Brazil. The message says, good morning, another person immediately responds, shots and more shots, be careful, people, you who are going to work. And then another person says, I have proof at the college today, I don't even know what to do. And then another person says, my phone is going to wake up now, it was six o'clock in the morning, my phone is going to wake up now to go to college too. I just saw the caberão, which is that armored car, here at the door of my house. This was the first morning dialogue of the people who live in the reality where I live. I couldn't get out of the house because there is violence, because there is a shooting, because the main public policy is the policy of war and drugs that dialogues with our reality through this violence. In this context, this is the elite police, the military police of Rio de Janeiro, the BOP, Special Operations Battalion, that usually invades the favela or in these vehicles, or by foot, with this characteristic, with the face wrapped, committing a lot of abuse, a lot of violence, and we can't even identify who is the person who is being abused to think about any possibility of denunciation of what we are living. This photo is also recent in Rio de Janeiro. In this extremely violent context, this other photo is striking because everything we are talking about, people, is about politics, about drugs. This photo is emblematic because recently, also this year in Rio de Janeiro, a black guy was murdered leaving a favela of Rio de Janeiro because the police alleged that he confused his umbrella with a rifle. He left the favela and he was raped with several shots and he died. And then this group of people did this demonstration because if you are black, if you are poor, if you live in a reality as we live, we are raped all the time and our death has no importance to the Brazilian society. And another striking photo is this, also of a recent case, of a boy who was murdered by a shot of that armored car that I posted earlier in another favela close to the one I live, which is the favela do complexo da Maré, also in Rio de Janeiro. And like this one, who was hit going to school, recently there was also a girl called Maria Eduardo, who was hit inside a school and died. There was a boy called Eduardo de Jesus who was inside the house, was also raped and died. In other words, in a few months, several children were murdered in a violent way in Rio de Janeiro because of the politics about drugs, because of the idea of war on drugs as public policy. There recently also happened this case, where a boy was leaving a favela and had the car shot by 80 shots shot by the Brazilian army. This must have been two weeks. He was leaving inside a car favela, was a family of black people and the car was shot 80 times by the Brazilian army. Two people died, others were injured and the army took over, which confused the vehicle with a van. Because when you leave that village, you are already criminalized. I am part of groups in the German complex. This is the straight path that we develop communication work, monitoring of violence, network construction between the communities to denounce this violence, to build data about this violence that does not exist widely and publicly to be released and to provoke society to reflect that the main public policy for the favela cannot be war on drugs and that politics about drugs cannot be thought of from a war logic. I am also part of another group, this is also there in the favela, we are talking to the residents, we can see up there our reality, how many houses perforated with a rifle shot. I am also part of another group which is the movement, which are the young people of different areas like that, different favelas and peripheries that are together discussing from our reality, from this violent reality, a new policy about drugs that dialogues within it the racism, the social inequality and the violence that we receive every day as public policy of drugs which is the cut off of war. The war in Brazil, the war on drugs is not for everyone, the war for the poor and for the black people who are the ones who are most murdered every year and who are the ones who fill our presides making Brazil today the third largest carceral population on the planet with more than 700,000 people arrested. And the movement is a group that is mobilizing other young people provoking a reflection that we need to talk about reduction of damages, that we need to dialogue for another policy about drugs that is not from the war because the war kills us and we are making an effort of survival and trying to bring new young people to participate in these conversations and both movements and the public policy we do field work with people in spaces known in Rio de Janeiro like Cracolândia which are drug use scenes so we are always doing incidents meetings talking to these people thinking about how we can strengthen guarantee health access guarantee that they are respected and have their rights guarantee that they are received in health positions around the place where they are because often in the Brazilian reality when you are in a street situation drug abuse and you go to the hospital because you have a toothache because you have a headache people don't look at you for what you are bringing you have no value normally they look at you and say oh, it's a crack it's an inferior person this person doesn't need to leave it there in the corner and many times it doesn't even attend and many times they call security to expel these people from the area where where the public health space should take place so while it's straight while it's moving we are denouncing this arbitrariness while together with the people who are doing drug abuse or just wanting to use the substances building a network to dialogue to connect and to be able to mobilize society that what I showed earlier and it can't be the main policy of drug abuse in Brazil and to close I wanted to read a message made by the group of Brazilians who are here at the meeting trying to draw attention to the gravity of what is happening in our country where we have a president of the extreme right where we have a growing of extreme right that is ending with any possibility to think of the reduction of damages to think of human rights to think of life-saving guarantees and respect for people who use drugs or who live in that space and the letter says the following in the month of April 2019 the president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro decreed the end of public policies of reducing damages in the country reinforcing the drug wars reinforcing the drug wars drug wars is always a war against people against health against rights and against science the current decision of the president potentializes the stigmatization of people who use drugs and promote the militarization of the territories composed by the most vulnerable populations authorizing a true massacre of the poor and the black of the peripheries of the Brazilian cities the Brazilian delegation present at the 16th edition of the international conference on reduction of damages carried out in Portugal in the city of Porto asks for the support of the international community to ensure the maintenance of the policies of reducing damages in Brazil and the achievements that these policies produced over the last 30 years I mean, I didn't just come to share what we do I came to ask for help for you not only for Brazil but for other countries that live the difficulty that we live the international community and what you do is our main tool to continue existing and continue trying to build any possibility of reducing damages in our country that's it, thank you wow I think wow is in every language right? that was amazing and so