In the protests on Independence Day in Brasilia, a Reuters photojournalist states he has been attacked by a police dog. Photo by Osvaldo Ribeiro Filho. Copyright Demotix (07/09/2013) [All links lead to Portuguese-language pages unless otherwise noted.] The atmosphere of protests that has flooded Brazil since June has exposed cases in which protesters and journalists acting peacefully have ended up being the target of disproportionate police action. In the protests that happened on Independence Day, 7 September 2013, 18 cases of aggression [en] by security agents against members of the media were registered, as reported by the blog Journalism in the Americas of the Knight Center of the University of Texas – 85 percent of a total of 21 attacks against these professionals registered that day. Brasilia, the federal capital of Brazil, was the city with the most interventions against members of the press, 12 in total, including reporters from Correio Braziliense (Brazilian Mail) that photographed targets to disproportionate police action and were photographed becoming the targets themselves. The most media-centered case dealing with attacks against the press was the complaint of a Reuters reporter, Ueslei Marcelino, injured during the coverage of police action near the National Stadium of Brasilia. The profile @roteirodecinema published on Twitter: Fotógrafo da Reuters confirma no Instagram que PM do DF usou cães pra atacar a imprensa no protesto ontem pic.twitter.com/wyEMiGdmb2 via @KetyDC — Roteiro de Cinema (@roteirodecinema) September 8, 2013 Reuters photographer confirmed on Instagram that the capital's military police used dogs to attack the press in yesterday's protest. These aggressive actions have become a restriction against the right to protest or an attack on the right to free press, two concepts that are highly valued in every democracy. According to a survey by the Associação Brasileira de Jornalismo Investigativo (Brazilian Association of Investigative Journalism), or Abraji, in the month of June when the biggest protests emerged, at least 52 journalists were victims of aggression in the country during the coverage of the demonstrations. A complete spreadsheet (.xlsx) from Abraji reports all the members of the press attacked by security agents and protestors in June 2013. The first famous case of a journalist victim of disproportionate police action was that of Folha de São Paulo reporter Giuliana Vellone, shot in the eye by a rubber bullet during the Sao Paulo protest on June 13 (reported on by Global Voices). The Facebook post in which she explains what happened has been shared almost 12,000 times. Stories of cases where members of the press – agents or not of traditional media vehicles- were victims of police aggression in São Paulo, Rio, Brasilia, and in other cities show, according to the blog [en] Journalism in the Americas, “a recurrence of security forces as authors of violence against journalists.” A photojournalist was arrested for being suspected of throwing a beer can at a police car during the Independence Day celebrations on Avenida Presidente Vargas in Rio de Janeiro. Photo by Marcio Isensee e Sá. Copyright Demotix (07/09/2013) Police – perpetrators and victims? Its complexity is evident when observed in the professional context to which Brazilian police officers are subject. On the one hand, the actions of the police and their relationship with citizens and the press itself, permit the identification of non-democratic actions. On the other hand, it is not possible to say that there is an atmosphere of democratic safety for these men and women working in the streets, when relating to those that carry signs demanding the improvement of that same democracy. As Global Voices reported [en] in July, the recent protests, apart from revealing excessive practices performed by the police, also showed that inside the organization there are some officers questioning the current format of their institutions. In August, a lieutenant of the Rio Grande do Norte Military Police (PMRN), after defending the demilitarization of the Brazilian police on Facebook, ended up suffering administrative action by a colonel that asked the chief of police to take appropriate measures against the lieutenant that, for him, não conseguiu assimilar e aprender a real e verdadeira razão de ser policial militar e da importância transcendental e imensurável da Polícia Militar do Rio Grande do Norte. did not manage to assimilate and learn the real and true reason to be a military policeman and of the transcendental and immeasurable importance of the Rio Grande do Norte Military Police.