Marielle, commonly known by her first name, is depicted in a floral dress, and the figure represents her towering legacy, da Silva said.
Marielle won elections to the city council in 2016, where she fought against violence against women while defending human rights and social programs, particularly in favelas like the one where she was born and raised. The rising political star and her driver were killed on the evening of March 14, 2018, while returning from an event to empower young black women.
Since then she has become a martyr and symbol of the left resistance. Her silhouette has been printed on T-shirts and painted on walls across the country, and even abroad.
Two former police officers, charged with committing the double murder, are in jail awaiting trial. But central questions about the case remain: who ordered Marielle’s murder and what were their motives?
Marielle’s father, Antônio Francisco da Silva Neto, said former far-right president Jair Bolsonaro has made no concerted effort to resolve the matter. He believes justice can finally be served since Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva became president in January.
“We wouldn’t have any hope if President Lula hadn’t been elected,” he told reporters.
Lula has strived to honor Marielle’s memory and expedite the investigation. On International Women’s Day, on March 8, he sent a bill to Congress to make March 14 a day named after Marielle and aimed at combating gender- and race-based political violence.
On Tuesday, Lula and his cabinet ministers held a minute’s silence. Marielle’s sister Anielle Franco, Lula’s racial equality minister, wiped away tears.
“It is very important for us as a family … to have a government that is concerned about the case and has shown an increasing willingness to cooperate so that we can discover who ordered the killing on my sister,” said Anielle Franco.
At Lula’s request, Justice Minister Flávio Dino has ordered the federal police to open an investigation parallel to the one being conducted by Rio’s state authorities. The case has passed through the hands of several prosecutors and several chief investigators.
Mônica Benício, Marielle’s widow who has since been elected to Rio city council herself, said Lula’s defeat of Bolsonaro in last October’s election changed everything.
“The previous administration never showed respect for Marielle’s memory, nor any commitment to shed light on the matter,” Benício told reporters for the Rio Art Museum.
Dino told reporters in Rio yesterday that he has held meetings with state authorities to share information and that federal police investigations are progressing. Later the same day, he visited the Mare favela where Marielle grew up.
On Tuesday, Amnesty International also opened an exhibition across the square from Marielle’s huge cutout. It consists of three panels, the first asking passers-by to leave a note detailing something that happened to them over the past five years, and the other two panels cataloging events that happened during that time.
“The idea is to show that a lot has happened in everyone’s life in five years – people got married, changed jobs. But there has been no justice,” Jurema Werneck, director of Amnesty International in Brazil, told The Associated Press. “Many different authorities are involved, but they make promises they don’t keep.”
After the inauguration of the recess and panels, Marielle’s family and a handful of supporters made their way to a modest nearby church for a mass held in her memory, attended by about 100 people. Over the carpet on the front steps leading to the altar was a yellow cloth with her silhouette on it.
Some in attendance held sunflowers in their hands, and many wore shirts with Marielle’s likeness or slogans such as “Fight like Marielle Franco” and “Who ordered Marielle’s death?”
“Besides Marielle’s family, and everyone, not just in Rio de Janeiro, but in the world, we will get the answers we need so that all this can be completed, with the peace of mind that injustice will never prevail,” said Father Luciano Basilio. public.
