Brazilian protesters clashed with police near a stadium hosting a Confederations Cup soccer match, as thousands of demonstrators trying to march on the site were met by tear gas and rubber bullets.
Brazil's senate voted to increase penalties for those found guilty of corruption, responding to a key demand made by protesters across the country. Anti-government protesters in part angered by the billions spent in World Cup preparations picked up tear gas canisters and lobbed them back at police, along with a shower of rocks. A dense fog of the acrid gas enveloped the mass of protesters, who were about a mile (2 kilometers) away from the stadium where Brazil was playing Uruguay in a semifinal match of the warm-up tournament for next year's World Cup. Police set up a 2-kilometer (1-mile) perimeter around the stadium, normal procedure for international tournaments. Mounted police and riot units maintained another security line about 1 kilometer (half-mile) from the stadium. Two protesters were hurt, including a 21-year-old man who fell from an overpass and was in critical condition. In another area of Belo Horizonte, a group of masked young men shattered the windows of car showroom and set the shop on fire. About 50,000 protesters had earlier massed in a central plaza in Belo Horizonte. It's the latest protest to turn violent as Latin America's biggest country has been hit by nationwide protests since June 17. The wave of protests that hit Brazil began as opposition to transportation fare hikes, then expanded to a laundry list of causes including anger at high taxes, poor services and high World Cup spending, before coalescing around the issue of rampant government corruption. It has become the largest eruption of public demonstrations Brazil has seen in two decades.
Source: BNA