Amnesty cautions Brazil on Worls Cup

Amnesty International on Thursday criticized government land-taking in Rio de Janeiro for infrastructure improvements ahead of the 2014 World Cup and Olympic Games two years later. "Forced evictions, it is kind of the other side of the Olympics," Salil Shetty, Amnesty's secretary general, told AFP in an interview. Parts of Rio de Janeiro's slums, or favelas, are being razed to make way for highways, but Amnesty's chief warned that human rights are at stake. A third of Rio's six million residents live in the shantytowns. "Nobody denies there is need of infrastructure and reorganization for those projects, the question is how you do it," Shetty said. Brazil is in the midst of a massive infrastructure upgrade -- building new roads, expanding airports and repairing stadiums -- in advance of the World Cup and Olympic Games. But with greater economic power and now hosting high-profile global events, Brazil, which is campaigning for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, must be careful to respect human rights at home, Amnesty said. "Brazil is becoming more and more important at the global stage," Shetty said. "As they have greater aspirations to become an international actor, then they have to get their domestic house in order. I think there will be pressure." Still, Shetty expressed optimism about President Dilma Rousseff's commitment to human rights. Rousseff has taken a more neutral stance on Iran than her predecessor, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who had a friendly relationship with Tehran. Brazil recently voted for appointing a special UN investigator on human rights in Iran.