Brazil faces complex human rights challenges – 09/02/2023 – Politics

It was difficult to expect progress in the field of human rights under former President Jair Bolsonaro (PL). His trajectory was notable for homophobic, racist and misogynistic speeches and for his defense of the military regime, torture and summary execution by public security forces.

The rhetoric that “human rights are used to defend bandits” is not original and echoes the context in which the theme debuted in the national public debate: in defense of political prisoners targeted by the dictatorship.

In the 2018 presidential election, 2 out of 3 Brazilians said that “human rights defend bandits more”, according to an Ipsos survey, and half said they did not know exactly what human rights are.

Human rights are guarantees and freedoms that constitute the human condition and, therefore, belong to every human being, without discrimination. The right to life, not to be enslaved or subjected to torture, to a fair trial, religious freedom, education and private property are some examples.

Misunderstanding of the issue was fuel to worsen what was already bad, defined by extreme inequalities crossed by a strong racial marker —the so-called structural racism.

Added to the historical abuses and negligence of the Brazilian State was the country’s return to the hunger map, the increase in preventable deaths and poverty, records in deforestation, violence against women, against activists and transgender people, in addition to the maxim history of incarcerated people.

Part of the result is in the 2022 ranking of the HDI (Human Development Index), of the UN (United Nations). Brazil had the second consecutive fall in 30 years.

“The shocking thing is that, whichever way you look, there has been a setback in meeting human rights obligations in the country,” says Jurema Werneck, executive director of Amnesty International Brazil.

What are the main challenges in the field of human rights? In addition to the chronic problems linked to structural racism and State violence, the government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) will have to face this mandate with the urgency of the environmental issue and hunger, obstacles to the right of defense and a prison system that presents an “unconstitutional state of affairs”, as the STF (Federal Supreme Court) has already admitted.

“We are also going to deal with the dismantling carried out in the spaces of social participation and public policies in the areas of indigenous people, women, black people and LGBTs”, says Sheila de Carvalho, political director of the Instituto de Referência Negra Peregum and member of the Black Coalition for Rights .

In recent years, oversight bodies in the most diverse areas related to human rights have been weakened, such as work analogous to slavery, environmental crimes, protection of indigenous peoples and combating the practice of torture in prison institutions, among others.

“It’s not enough to have a Citizen’s Constitution if we don’t have oversight bodies that work on behalf of the most vulnerable populations,” says Camila Asano, director of projects at Conectas Human Rights.

What questions are urgent? Hunger imposed the theme as a priority. Without food, you cannot work or study and you have to humiliate yourself to survive. Food insecurity has increased 2.5 times since 2018 in the country and today affects 33 million Brazilians, according to a study by Rede Penssan (Brazilian Network for Research in Sovereignty and Food and Nutrition Security) last year. It is disproportionately higher in the North and Northeast, in rural areas, among women and among black people.

According to the survey (from interviews in 12,745 households, from all states of the federation), 1 out of 3 Brazilians did something in 2022 that caused them shame, sadness or embarrassment in order to get food, in an issue closely linked to the economy .

In 2022, Brazil returned to the UN hunger map, a category of nations that have more than 2.5% of the population with chronic food shortages. Brazil has 4.1%. The National Food Security Council was abolished in 2019 by Bolsonaro.

Climate is another priority that has been imposed by the explosion of destruction of the Amazon rainforest in recent years and the intensification of extreme weather events around the world.

What issues are persistent? Most of them orbit around public security and the criminal justice system, such as the practice of torture by the state or the violation of the right to a defense.

Also persistent is the racial bias of these issues, expressed in the disproportionately high representation of black people among those killed by public security forces (84.1% are black) and among those incarcerated (67% black), in a society where little more than 56% declare themselves black.

“By focusing on ostensive policing, not on investigation that helps to dismantle criminal networks, a policy of control of certain territories and bodies that are not protected by the meshes of organized crime is created”, says Mariana Dias, executive director of IDDD.

How did Covid make access to justice difficult? The suspension of custody hearings led to their virtualization, through the use of videoconferencing. Created in 2015 to ensure the fundamental rights of prisoners, the custody hearing is the presentation to the judge, within 24 hours, of the person arrested.

“The virtualization of hearings compromises part of their purpose, since it is not possible to detect torture through a screen or to know if the person is being constrained or not in their answers”, says Janine Salles de Carvalho, executive secretary of the Justice Network Criminal.

Mariana Dias, from IDDD, mentions that at the hearing it is also up to the judge to analyze whether the prison “respects individual guarantees and whether there is a need to decree preventive detention or apply alternative measures”.

What is the scenario and how to deal with the prison system? “The country’s prison system violates the right to dignity and does not guarantee access to health, education and work”, says the director of IDDD about the conditions faced by the third largest prison population in the world, with more than 820 thousand people.

It illustrates part of the difficulties of reintegration of those who pass through the country’s penitentiaries, in which overcrowding, torture and other degrading treatments prevail, such as the lack of adequate food.

“When you put a person in this system who has not committed serious or violent crime and who is not involved in criminal networks, it promotes organized crime”, says Dias.

There are alternative measures to the restriction of freedom in Brazilian law, but they are rarely implemented, leading to prisons who did not need to be there. Added to this scenario are flaws in investigations and criminal proceedings that also end up taking innocent people to detention centers.

Extrication policies are seen as essential, including changes in the Drug Law, considered expensive and inefficient. The 2006 law made the percentage of prisoners accused of this type of crime jump from 15% of the total to, in 2017, 30% among men and 59% among women prisoners.

“It is urgent to rethink drug policy from a human rights point of view, never as a problem of criminal law and public safety”, says Mariana Dias.

The war on drugs, she says, “is a war on people, especially black people, and it hasn’t diminished the supply or demand for these substances.”

State violence increased in the country? From 2013 to 2021, the number of deaths by police officers increased by almost 200%, reaching 6,412 people. The 5% drop in 2021 changed the picture little. The number represents 13% of the total intentional violent deaths of 2021.

“Excessive use of force puts civilians and police officers at risk,” says Maria Laura Canineu, Brazil director at Human Rights Watch, calling attention to the high number of police deaths and suicides.

“A plan to reduce police lethality with the support of civil society and the affected communities is crucial. Abuses must be investigated by independent prosecutors, not by the police themselves”, he says.

Here there is a lack of federal action in the creation of transparency mechanisms, such as the use of cameras attached to police uniforms, pointed out as a factor of police protection and a drop in deaths caused by security forces. The measure is supported by 90% of Brazilians in SP, MG and RJ.

The practice of torture, with its roots in Brazil as a slave colony, had its supervision even more impaired in 2019, when a presidential decree exonerated experts from the National Mechanism for the Prevention and Combat of Torture and opened vacancies without remuneration.

Created in 2013, the entity has only 11 experts responsible for visiting all types of prisons in the country. They are prisons, psychiatric hospitals, shelters for the elderly, institutions for children and adolescents and military disciplinary detention centers. The account does not close.