Rio de Janeiro 2016 Olympic Games: Violation of Information and Communication Rights in the Case of BRT Transolimpica

In the context of significant urban changes in Rio de Janeiro, one of the biggest Brazilian cities, affected communities struggle for their right to information, claiming it a human and social right. In consequence of the preparation of the city for the 2016 Olympic Games, especially under the argument of urban mobility projects, hundreds of families were evicted or experienced changes that directly affected their daily lives. These communities, in partnership with other social movements - regarding the right to the city, social-environmental justice and media democratization - claim for government transparency on infrastructure projects performed by private corporations with the State support. At the same time, they emerge a discussion on plural voices and the role of media in the public sphere concerning social movements demands. Impacted communities fight for their discourses and questions to State power to be visible. However, in a scenario of mass media concentration in the hands of few companies, media itself is a complex issue and sometimes turns to be another silencer instrument in Rio de Janeiro context. The case of the Bus Rapid Transit (known as BRT) Transolimpica project, a mobility enterprise in the Western Zone of Rio de Janeiro, is one evidence of this situation. In the one hand, public power presents the enterprise as a sustainable legacy of the Olympics. On the other hand, social movements with an Environmental and Social Justice perspective approach show people´s rights violations. During three months, a research conducted with the support of the NGO Article 19 analysed the transparency of public organisms related to enterprise of BRT Transolimpica. Based on a methodology stablished by a recent Brazilian Law of Access to Information, a total of 54 information requests were sent to public organisms – from local government sphere to federal - questioning about families evictions processes, environmental and social impacts of the BRT Transolimpica among other issues. The results show that the organisms adequately answered less than 30% of the requests. All the information requests were made by the researcher as a common citizen, based on the demand of the affected communities and other questions conducting the empirical study the most close to the reality it could. To acknowledge the analysis of the transparency, the research work also confronted the results with interviews (most of them with women participants) and participative dynamics with the communities of Vila Autódromo and Vila União, both affected by the BRT Transolimpica, and social movements working on the area. The participative discussions took place through workshops in the impacted localities, showing other aspects of transparency absence, like the misunderstanding information given by the State and the companies to the communities (mostly poor ones) and the silence from mass media about their situation. The aim of this article is to discuss the relationship between Media and Democracy, making a bridge with the perspective of Social and Environmental Justice literature and Political Ecology discussions.