Brazilians, especially Indians and other socially excluded segments of the population, continue to suffer a high rate of human rights violations.
This finding comes from Amnesty International’s Report 2006, released yesterday, May 23, in London. The report analyzes cases of human rights violations in 150 countries in 2005.
Regarding Brazil, Amnesty said that, while the federal government offered many proposals, few state governments kept their promises to reform public safety systems.
The document informed that human rights violations committed by the Brazilian police, including executions without court authorization, torture, and excessive use of force, persisted all over the country.
"Torture and mistreatment were generalized in the prison system, where conditions are cruel, inhuman, and degrading," the document affirms.
Amnesty also observed that Indians are victims of attacks and assassinations, as well as being forced to abandon their homelands. According to the international human rights organization, the federal government failed to fulfill its goal of demarcating all the Indian territories.
Another critical situation mentioned in the report was the case of human rights defenders and activists who fought for agrarian reform. According to the document, they were victims of threats, attacks, and, in some cases, assassinations. According to the report, the authors of human rights violations went unpunished in consequence of judicial slowness.
Amnesty pointed out that 2005 was marked by a political crisis sparked by the revelation of a corruption scheme involving members of the Administration and the National Congress.
The organization emphasized that significant efforts were made to disarm the population, and a law promulgated in 2003 to control the bearing of weapons apparently contributed to a decrease in the number of homicides in the country.
The Secretariat of Human Rights, linked to the Presidency, informed that it has still not officially received the Amnesty International report.
Agência Brasil
