Torture by Police, Forced Disappearance & Other Ill Treatment In the early years of the 21st Century, 2000 to
2025 gvnet.com/torture/Brazil.htm
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CAUTION: The following links
have been culled from the web to illuminate the situation in Brazil. Some of these links may lead to websites
that present allegations that are unsubstantiated or even false. No
attempt has been made to validate their authenticity or to verify their content. HOW TO USE THIS WEBPAGE Students If you are looking
for material to use in a term-paper, you are advised to scan the postings on this
page and others to see which aspects of Torture by Authorities are of
particular interest to you. You might
be interested in exploring the moral justification for inflicting pain or
inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment in order to obtain critical
information that may save countless lives, or to elicit a confession for a
criminal act, or to punish someone to teach him a lesson outside of the
courtroom. Perhaps your paper might
focus on some of the methods of torture, like fear, extreme temperatures,
starvation, thirst, sleep deprivation, suffocation, or immersion in freezing
water. On the other hand, you might
choose to write about the people acting in an official capacity who
perpetrate such cruelty. There is a
lot to the subject of Torture by Authorities.
Scan other countries as well as this one. Draw comparisons between activity in
adjacent countries and/or regions.
Meanwhile, check out some of the Term-Paper
resources that are available on-line. ***
ARCHIVES *** I Fled Brazil to
Escape Torture, Corruption, and My Family Karen Keilt, Daily Beast, 9 May 2019 www.thedailybeast.com/i-fled-brazil-to-escape-torture-corruption-and-my-family [accessed 10 May
2019] Kidnapped and then
tortured and raped while being held for ransom, Karen Keilt
discovered upon her release that her own family was horrifyingly indifferent
to her ordeal. I was born and
raised in a wealthy Brazilian/American family in São Paulo, Brazil and had
lived a very privileged life there for the first 27 years of my life. But a
few months after our marriage, my husband and I were pulled from our beds,
imprisoned, raped and tortured for 45 days by the corrupt government under
the premise of drug trafficking, released only when my family paid a $400,000
bribe. Not long after this traumatic experience, Brazil passed a law in 1979
that gave carte blanche indemnity from prosecution to any government officer
who tortured. This new law was anathema to me. I had an infant son and my
fledgling marriage had fallen apart. 2020 Country
Reports on Human Rights Practices: Brazil U.S. Dept of State Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and
Labor, 30 March 2021 www.state.gov/reports/2020-country-reports-on-human-rights-practices/brazil/
[accessed 6 July
2021] TORTURE AND OTHER
CRUEL, INHUMAN, OR DEGRADING TREATMENT OR PUNISHMENT The constitution
prohibits torture and inhuman or degrading treatment, but there were reports
government officials sometimes employed such practices. The law mandates that
special police courts exercise jurisdiction over state military police except
those charged with “willful crimes against life,” primarily homicide.
Impunity for security forces was a problem. Police personnel often were
responsible for investigating charges of torture and excessive force carried
out by fellow officers. Delays in the special military police courts allowed
many cases to expire due to statutes of limitations. According to the National
Council of the Public Ministry, in 2019 there were 2,676 cases of guards and
other personnel inflicting bodily harm on prisoners, compared with 3,261
cases in 2018. PRISON AND DETENTION
CENTER CONDITIONS General prison
conditions were poor. There was a lack of potable water, inadequate
nutrition, food contamination, rat and cockroach infestations, damp and dark
cells, a lack of clothing and hygiene items, and poor sanitation. According
to a March report from the Ministry of Health, prisoners were 35 times more
likely to contract tuberculosis, compared with the general public. One NGO,
the Rio de Janeiro Mechanism for Torture Prevention, asserted that injured
inmates were denied medication and proper medical treatment. Freedom House
Country Report 2018 Edition freedomhouse.org/country/brazil/freedom-world/2018 [accessed 11 May
2020] F3. IS THERE PROTECTION FROM THE ILLEGITIMATE USE
OF PHYSICAL FORCE AND FREEDOM FROM WAR AND INSURGENCIES? Brazil’s police
force remains mired in corruption, and serious police abuses, including
extrajudicial killings, continued in 2017. Police officers are rarely
prosecuted for abuses, and those charged are almost never convicted. Conditions in
Brazil’s severely overcrowded prisons are life-threatening, characterized by
disease, a lack of adequate food, and deadly gang-related violence. Violence
is more likely to affect poor, black prisoners. Wealthy inmates often enjoy
better conditions than poorer prisoners. Brazil prosecutors
open probe after prison torture videos National Post, Rio
De Janeiro. 30 November 2017 nationalpost.com/pmn/news-pmn/brazil-prosecutors-open-probe-after-prison-torture-videos [accessed 3 December
2017] Brazilian
prosecutors have opened an investigation into three penitentiaries in Goias state after videos surfaced showing what seem to be
prison guards torturing inmates. In videos believed
to have been shot between 2014 and 2015, but only obtained this week by
prosecutors and made available to the press Thursday, several guards can be
seen repeatedly using stun guns on inmates who were already under control. In one video,
prison agents can be seen filming each other as they shoot a prisoner with a
stun gun while he is sleeping in a hammock inside a cell. Rio police kill,
torture with impunity Laura Bonilla Cal, Agence France-Presse AFP, 9
July 2016 www.chinapost.com.tw/international/americas/2016/07/09/471704/Rio-police.htm [accessed 3 August
2016] [accessed 30
December 2017] The international
rights group identified 64 cases in the last eight years in which Rio police
allegedly tried to cover up extrajudicial killings of 116 people, including
at least 24 minors. "Killing
criminals was a requirement from my superiors as a way of showing that we
were performing well," one of 30 police officers interviewed for Human
Rights Watch's study alleged. The officer said he
had been stationed in one of Rio's most dangerous neighborhoods where he took
part in operations against heavily armed drug traffickers. The strategy was
to kill them as a way to reduce crime, he said. The officer, who is
still on the force, spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals. He was quoted as
saying that some police would capture suspected drug traffickers and kill
them, sometimes to gain status as killers and to boost their own extortion
rackets. Human
Rights Watch World Report 2015 - Events of 2014 Human Rights Watch,
29 January 2015 www.hrw.org/world-report/2015/...
or
www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/wr2015_web.pdf [accessed 18 March
2015] BRAZIL PRISON CONDITIONS,
TORTURE, AND ILL-TREATMENT OF DETAINEES - Torture is a chronic problem in police
stations and detention centers. Between January 2012 and June 2014, the
national Human Rights Ombudsman’s Office received 5,431 complaints of torture
and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment (about 181 complaints per month)
from all over the country through a telephone hotline service. Of these, 84
percent referred to incidents at police stations, jails, prisons, and
juvenile detention centers. Rights group:
Torture in Brazil still a problem The Associated Press
AP, Sao Paulo, 29 July 2014 www.ksl.com/?nid=235&sid=30904748 [accessed 31
December 2014] The New York-based
Human Rights Watch said in an emailed statement that it found evidence
showing that since 2010, security forces and prison authorities practiced
cruel and inhumane treatment against 64 people in their custody. The group said more
than 150 police officers and prison guards were involved in torture and cruel
treatment inside detention centers, police stations and vehicles in the
states of Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Bahia, Espirito
Santo and Parana. Ideli Salvatti, head of the government's Human Rights
Secretariat, welcomed the group's observations. Torture in the name
of peace Astrid Prange, Deutsche Welle
DW-WORLD.DE, 2 November 2013 [accessed 2 Nov
2013] They could hear his
cries for help right through the wall, growing ever louder, increasingly
racked with pain. Uniformed officers at the police headquarters in Rio de
Janeiro's impoverished district of Rocinha were
torturing a local resident with electric shocks. But their colleagues on duty
in the next room didn't rush to help the victim. They just blocked their
ears. Eventually, he fell silent. The torture victim
was a construction worker called Amarildo de Souza,
who was arrested "by mistake" in Rocinha
on 14 July 2013. The officers mistook him for a drug dealer. Amarildo de Souza not been seen since. No body has been found, but his family
assume that he is dead. The search for Amarildo has become a cause celebre,
and a nationwide symbol of the struggle against police violence and
injustice. Ever since, earlier this year, members of Rio's so-called
"Peace Police", the UPP (Unidade de Policia Pacificadora: Police
Peace Unit) admitted that torture was part of their daily routine, the city
has been in uproar. More and more people are criticising
the concept of security policing represented by the UPP. Brazil charges 15
police officers in torture death Paulo Prada,
Reuters, Rio De Janeiro, 22 October 2013 ca.reuters.com/article/topNews/idCABRE99L1BP20131022 [accessed 14
September 2014] Among the accused
is the former commander of the police force there, who was fired from his
post after the abduction and is in custody, facing charges including torture
and the hiding of a corpse. Prosecutors say the former commander ordered
subordinates to detain and question de Souza and, after the torture killed
him, hide his body. After voice
analyses and interviews with police who were ordered to guard a small shed
where the abuses occurred, investigators identified four officers who
prosecutors say carried out the torture, including simulated drowning, electric
shocks and asphyxiation with a
plastic bag. If convicted, the
accused face prison sentences of up to 33 years. Conclusions and
recommendations of the Committee against Torture U.N. Convention
against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment -- Doc.
A/56/44, paras. 115-120 (2001) www1.umn.edu/humanrts/cat/observations/brazil2001.html [accessed 23
February 2013] 119. The Committee expresses
its concern about the following: (a) The persistence
of a culture that accepts abuses by public officials, the numerous
allegations of acts of torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment - in
police stations, prisons and facilities belonging to the armed forces - and
the de facto impunity enjoyed by the perpetrators of those acts; (b) The
overcrowding, lack of amenities and poor hygiene in prisons, the lack of
basic services and of appropriate medical attention in particular, violence
between prisoners and sexual abuse. The Committee is particularly concerned
about allegations of ill-treatment and discriminatory treatment of certain
groups with regard to access to the already limited essential services,
notably on the basis of social origin or sexual orientation; (c) The long
periods of pre-trial detention and delays in judicial procedure which,
together with the overcrowding in prisons, have resulted in convicted
prisoners and prisoners awaiting trial being held in police stations and
other places of detention not adequately equipped for long periods of
detention, a fact which could in itself constitute a violation of the
provisions of article 16 of the Convention; (d) The lack of
training of law-enforcement officials in general, at all levels, and of
medical personnel, as provided by article 10 of the Convention; (e) The competence
of the police to conduct inquiries following reports of crimes of torture
committed by members of police forces without effective control in practice
by the Public Prosecutor's Office, with the result that immediate and
impartial inquiries are prevented, which contributes to the impunity enjoyed
by the perpetrators of these acts; (f) The absence of
an institutionalized and accessible procedure to guarantee victims of acts of
torture the right to obtain redress and to be fairly and adequately
compensated, as provided for in article 14 of the Convention; (g) The absence in
Brazilian legislation of an explicit prohibition on any statement obtained
through torture being accepted as evidence in judicial proceedings. Ensure Justice for
Police Abuse in Rio State Human Rights Watch,
Washington DC, June 14, 2012 www.hrw.org/news/2012/06/14/brazil-ensure-justice-police-abuse-rio-state [accessed 21 January
2013] But Human Rights
Watch found that extrajudicial executions by police remain a serious problem,
and that these cases are misreported as “resistance killings,” the result of
shootouts with criminal suspects. In one case from
June 2011, for example, 11-year-old Juan de Moraes
disappeared after an incident in the Danon favela
in which three other people were shot by military police, one fatally. The
police reported the incident as a “shootout” with “armed assailants.” Civil
police investigators only undertook a serious investigation to determine what
took place after the case received extensive media attention. They ultimately
found Moraes’ DNA at the crime scene and other
forensic evidence indicating that there had been no shoot-out. That same month,
Diego Beliene was shot to death by military police
in the Salgueiro favela. The police reported the
death as a “resistance killing,” claiming that Beliene
was wounded during a shootout in the street. However, civil police
investigators found forensic evidence and testimony from witnesses indicating
that a police officer shot Beliene after he entered
a property that had been occupied by the police. Police held Beliene in custody for more than half an hour as he bled
to death, refusing pleas by his family members to allow them to assist him. Misreporting of
police killing cases and inadequate investigations by civil police are major
factors contributing to widespread impunity, according to state prosecutors
who spoke with Human Rights Watch. No police officers have been held
accountable in the majority of cases that Human Rights Watch documented in
2009. For example, no one has been brought to justice in connection with the Complexo do Alemão police
killings of 19 people on June 27, 2007, despite extensive evidence that
multiple extrajudicial executions occurred, crime scene evidence was
deliberately destroyed, and investigators negligently failed to request obvious
forensics analysis. Essential
Background: Overview of Human Rights Issues in Brazil Human
Rights Watch, January 1, 2004 www.hrw.org/legacy/english/docs/2003/12/31/brazil6998.htm#5 [accessed
31 December 2014] TORTURE -- Torture and ill-treatment of criminal suspects and
prisoners is a systemic problem in Brazil. Police (both civil and military)
and guards routinely torture suspects during and after arrest, in pre-trial
detention facilities, and in prisons. Children held in juvenile detention
centers are commonly beaten by police and by other detainees. The
mistreatment of prisoners and police abuse of criminal suspects, including
electric shocks and beatings, occurs while police or guards are trying to
extract confessions, information, or money. Victims tend to be poor, brown or
black common criminals. Torture is facilitated by unacceptable detention
conditions and gross neglect of detainees' basic rights, including the right
to counsel. Impunity for torturers gives police and prison guards no
incentive to employ alternative methods of control. POLICE VIOLENCE -- Police violence
is endemic and police ties to organized crime and death squads aggravate the
problem. Death squads, usually made up of police and other state agents,
intimidate those deemed socially or politically undesirable. Poor young black
and brown men are often targeted because of their social background. More
than 800 civilians reportedly died in police shootings in Rio de Janeiro
during the first eight months of 2003 alone. In many cases such killings are
officially classified as "resistance followed by death," thus
turning the tables on the victims and precluding an investigation into police
conduct. A report by the Global Justice Center (Justica
Global) on summary and extrajudicial executions in Brazil from 1997 to 2003
detailed how some state authorities have even "created incentives for
law enforcement agents to kill, employing salary bonuses and promotions or
guaranteeing impunity for police that distinguish themselves for engaging in
fatal shootings." AMNESTY
INTERNATIONAL From an old article -- URL not available Article was
published sometime prior to 2015 TORTURE AND OTHER
ILL-TREATMENT
- Torture was prevalent at the point of arrest and during interrogation and detention
in police stations and prisons. PRISON CONDITIONS - The prison
population reached around 500,000 in 2011, with 44 per cent of all prisoners
held in pre-trial detention. Severe overcrowding, degrading conditions,
torture, and prisoner-on-prisoner violence were commonplace. DEATH SQUADS AND
MILITIAS
- Police officers were believed to be involved in death squads and milícias (militias) engaged in social cleansing,
extortion, as well as in trafficking in arms and drugs. In February, the federal
police’s Operation Guillotine uncovered a web of corruption extending to
senior officials in Rio de Janeiro’s civil police. Forty-seven serving or
former police officers were accused of forming armed gangs, embezzlement,
arms trafficking and extortion. In February in the
state of Goiás, 19 military police officers,
including the sub-commander of the military police, were arrested and charged
with involvement in death squads. In June, a special commission investigating
police involvement in death squads in the state released a report examining
37 cases of enforced disappearance
where police involvement was suspected. Following the release of the report,
members of the commission themselves received death threats. Search … AMNESTY
INTERNATIONAL For curreent articles::
Search Amnesty International Website www.amnesty.org/en/search/?q=brazil+torture&ref=&year=&lang=en&adv=1&sort=relevance [accessed 25 December
2018] Scroll
Down ***
EARLIER EDITIONS OF SOME OF THE ABOVE *** Human Rights
Reports » 2005 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices U.S. Dept of State Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and
Labor, March 8, 2006 www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61718.htm [accessed 21 January
2013] 2009-2017.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61718.htm [accessed 3 July
2019] TORTURE
AND OTHER CRUEL, INHUMAN, OR DEGRADING TREATMENT OR PUNISHMENT – Although the law
prohibits torture and provides severe legal penalties for its use, torture by
police and prison guards remained a serious and widespread problem. From January through
September, the Sao Paulo State Police Ombudsman's Office received 17
complaints of torture. The nongovernmental organization (NGO) Christian
Association for the Abolition of Torture estimated that it had received
complaints of 650 cases of torture in the Sao Paulo State prison system from
the end of 2002 until mid-year, approximately 60 of which were received from
January to September. The NGO Christian Association for the Abolition of
Torture estimated that it received approximately 25 complaints of torture in
the Sao Paulo prison system during the year. Common torture methods included
open-handed blows, beatings with wood or other objects, and collective
punishment. The Center for the
Defense of Human Rights in Matto Grosso do Sul State received 36 reports of torture during the first
6 months of the year; one case resulted in a conviction. The center stated
that many victims did not report incidents of torture for fear of reprisal. On June 14,
authorities sentenced two civil police officers to 8 years and 5 years 4
months in prison, respectively, for beating and torturing a 15-year-old boy
in Xinguara, Para State, in 1999. The convicted
officers remained free pending their appeal, despite fears that those
involved in obtaining the conviction of the two officers were at risk of
reprisals and intimidation. During the year the
National Movement for Human Rights together with the Chamber of Deputies'
Human Rights Commission reported that police and prison guards were
responsible for nearly 80 percent of the reported cases of torture and that
most victims were young, poor, Afro-Brazilian men from less-developed
regions; it reported an average of 150 cases per month. Most reports came
from remote cities in the interior where low-ranking police were in charge. The state public
prosecutor for children and youth (responsible for defending the rights of
incarcerated youth) was involved in 26 ongoing investigations into torture
and mistreatment claims in Sao Paulo's juvenile detention system (FEBEM).
According to the public prosecutor, there were 19 ongoing criminal cases
against 220 former or current FEBEM employees who were accused of torture. On January 11,
FEBEM Vila Maria employees reportedly beat and tortured inmates. On January
13, 16 FEBEM employees were arrested and provisionally imprisoned, while 7
evaded arrest; 55 were indicted on charges of torture, failure to prevent
torture, and related charges. Sao Paulo State authorities continued their
investigation at year's end. In June Federal
District Attorney General Rogerio Schietti presented an analysis of 711 complaints of
torture received by the National Torture SOS hot line between 2001 and 2003.
The analysis classified 62 of the complaints as torture, of which 45 percent
occurred in prisons, 33 percent in jails, and 22 percent in public areas. In
73 percent of the cases, torture had been used as a "punitive or
preventive" measure. In the Federal District, beating was the method of
torture in 72 percent of the cases, but psychological intimidation, food deprivation,
water torture, and electrical shocks also occurred. Federal, state, and
military police often enjoyed impunity in cases of torture, as in other cases
of abuse (see section 1.e.) The 2004 case of
five individuals who alleged that military police officers in Sao Bernardo do
Campo, Sao Paulo, regularly tortured them over a period of 112 days remained
pending at year's end. According to the NGO Christian Association for the
Abolition of Torture, the four policemen charged in the case were released, pending
the trial's outcome. No new information
was available regarding the criminal investigation into the public
prosecutor's charges that in July 2004 FEBEM's Raposo
Tavares unit 27 tortured youthful inmates by burning them with fireworks. The
unit director was dismissed in November. In July Delegado Marco Tulio Fadel, accused of detaining and torturing adults and
adolescents in 2003 at the Igarape police station
in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais State, was
sentenced to 16 years' imprisonment. In some cases,
sexual orientation or gender identity might have played a role in cases of
torture and cruel treatment (see section 5). NGOs confirmed that police
committed abuse and extortion directed against transvestite prostitutes in
the cities of Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte, and Salvador. While an internal
civil investigation absolved five civil Anti-Kidnapping Unit policemen on
charges of torturing three individuals in the Sapopemba
neighborhood of Sao Paulo City in 2003; a trial on those charges against four
policemen and a police clerk remained pending at year's end. Freedom House
Country Report - Political Rights: 2 Civil Liberties: 2 Status: Free 2009 Edition www.freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2009/brazil [accessed 21 January
2013] LONG URL
ç 2009 Country Reports begin on Page 21 [accessed 11 May
2020] Brazil’s police are
among the world’s most violent and corrupt, and the
violence has only increased in recent years. According to official estimates,
police in Rio de Janeiro state killed 694 people in the first half of 2007,
one-third more than the same period in 2006. Torture is used systematically
to extract confessions from suspects, and extrajudicial killings are
portrayed as shootouts with dangerous criminals. An investigation by an
independent committee found overwhelming evidence that many of the killings
reported from a May 2006 crime wave in Sao Paulo were in fact summary
executions by the police. In the rare instances when police officers are
indicted for such abuses, convictions are not obtained; typically the charges
are dismissed for “lack of evidence.”
The situation is complicated by the fact that this “no prisoner”
approach by the police often enjoys considerable support by favela dwellers,
the principal victims of gang violence. The National Committee for the
Prevention and Control of Torture, which was created in June 2006, is tasked
with designing mechanisms to minimize torture and inspecting detention
centers. The prison system
remains anarchic, overcrowded, and largely unfit for human habitation. Human
rights groups charge that torture and other inhumane treatment common to most
of the country’s detention centers turn petty thieves into hardened
criminals. According to official estimates, Brazil’s prisons hold
approximately 420,000 inmates despite a design capacity of only 220,000. A
commission charged with investigating problems with the country’s prisons was
established in August 2007 after 25 inmates died during a riot in a Minas Gerais prison. U.S.
Library of Congress - Country Study 1998 Library of Congress
Call Number F2508 .B846 1998 www.loc.gov/collections/country-studies/?q=F2508+.B846 [accessed 19 July
2017] CRIME AND PUNISHMENT
- PENAL INSTITUTIONS
– Prison conditions
generally range from poor to harsh, and include overcrowding, a lack of
hygiene, poor nutrition, and even instances of torture. In 1995 Brazil's
overcrowded prisons held 129,169 inmates in space designed for 59,954. That
compares with 23,385 inmates in 1965, nearly a sixfold
increase. Often there are six to eight prisoners in a cell meant for three.
The Ministry of Justice reported that thirty-three prison rebellions occurred
in 1994, while attempted or successful escapes averaged almost nine per day. the fair use exception of 17 USC § 107 for noncommercial, nonprofit,
and educational use. PLEASE RESPECT
COPYRIGHTS OF COMPONENT ARTICLES. Cite this
webpage as: Patt, Prof. Martin, " Torture by Police, Forced
Disappearance & Other Ill Treatment in the early years of the 21st
Century- Brazil", http://gvnet.com/torture/Brazil.htm, [accessed
<date>] |
