Amnesty Commission reviews denials by Damares and Bolsonaro – 03/29/2023 – Power

The first session of the Amnesty Commission of the Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) government was scheduled for the morning of this Thursday (30), on the eve of the anniversary of the 1964 military coup. in the management of Damares Alves in the Ministry of Women, Family and Human Rights.

It is planned to analyze cases considered symbolic because they were rejected, with different justifications, during the governments of Jair Bolsonaro (PL) and Michel Temer (MDB).

In addition, the commission also begins its work under a new regiment, which now provides for the possibility of amnesty for collectives, in addition to increasing the possibilities of appeal.

According to the commission’s president, Eneá de Stutz e Almeida, the amnesty for collectives opens up a new range of possibilities for the commission’s activities. She hypothetically cites cases such as quilombola communities or indigenous peoples who have been persecuted by the military regime.

According to Eneá, the review of the amnesty requests judged during the Bolsonaro government is still at the beginning of a total that could reach 8,000 processes – during the last four years, 95% of the requests were denied.

She claims that she chose the cases that are on the agenda because of their symbolic importance. “These were judgments made against the law,” she says.

The military dictatorship in Brazil (1964-1985) had a structure dedicated to torture, deaths and disappearances.

Repression figures are not very precise, since the dictatorship never recognized these episodes. Military Justice audits received 6,016 reports of torture. Estimates made later pointed to 20,000 cases.

Prisoners reported being hung on macaw sticks, subjected to electric shocks, strangulation, drowning attempts, blows with a paddle, punches, kicks and other aggressions. In some cases, the torture session led to death.

In 2014, the National Truth Commission listed 191 dead and 210 missing. Another 33 disappeared had their bodies later located, for a total of 434 people.

One of the trials to be reassessed now by the commission is that of federal deputy Ivan Valente (PSOL-SP), who was a militant in the resistance to the military dictatorship, leader of the MEP (Movement for the Emancipation of the Proletariat) and founder of the PT.

Valente was persecuted by the military regime, arrested twice, passed through the DOI-Codi and Dops (Department of Political and Social Order) detention centers and was tortured. For this reason, he filed a claim for compensation, which last year was denied by the Amnesty Commission — still subordinate to Damares’ ministry.

In the vote that rejected the amnesty, the justification of Bolsonarist management was that the deputy would have been framed in the National Security Law, which was not exclusive to the dictatorship; and that, therefore, the State owed him no apology for what happened during the regime.

The commission stated that it was “required” that Valente be investigated and condemned for providing “necessary information to the State, responsible for guaranteeing law and order and preventing the implementation of a revolutionary war to seize power and implement a totalitarian regime along the Soviet line. , Cuban or Chinese”.

Another case that will be reassessed by the commission is that of Cláudia Arruda Campos, a member of the Ação Popular group —which also included names like Senator José Serra (PSDB-SP)— who was arrested by the Dops.

In 2019, the case’s rapporteur even gave an opinion in favor of granting amnesty, but General Rocha Paiva, then a member of the commission, asked for rejection.

“Although there is evidence of monitoring the applicant, it was not possible to identify in the file any action by the State to the detriment of the applicant [Cláudia Campos] that could give rise to the rights related to political amnesty”, said Paiva.

His opinion was followed by the other members of the commission, appointed by Damares, and the claim for compensation was denied.

The third case is that of José Pedro da Silva, who was a member of the National Labor Front and the Metallurgists Union in the 1970s, and was even arrested while organizing a protest in front of industries. According to his account, he was fired from the company where he worked in 1978 because of his performance.

He asked for compensation, as provided for in the Amnesty Law, for having had his career compromised by political persecution. Still in 2018, the commission granted him amnesty and a monthly payment of R$2,000.

However, the then deputy minister of Justice in the Michel Temer government, Gilson Libório, overrode the understanding of the collegiate and, through an ordinance, stated that there was no link between his arrest and his dismissal. Accordingly, he rejected the request.

The practice was later incorporated by the Damares administration to deny compensation even in cases assessed as valid by the collegiate.

Finally, Romário Schettino appears in the dictatorship’s intelligence reports as a former member of a study group in Caratinga (MG), in which journalist Miriam Leitão also participated.

Schettino was a Central Bank employee in the 1970s when he was kidnapped and arrested by security forces for alleged “subversive infiltration” in the student movement in Brasília, where he was studying history. He resigned from his job and went into exile in Europe.

His amnesty request was initially denied in 2008, but, after an appeal, it was granted in 2018. However, his amnesty ordinance was never published, either by the Temer government or by Bolsonaro. Therefore, compensation never began to be paid.