Fifty five years ago, Brazil was immersed in one of the darkest eras of its history. The 1964 coup was the start of a military dictatorship that lasted 21 years. During this time serious human rights violations were committed leading to hundreds of deaths and disappearances and to thousands of citizens being tortured.
In its final report, The Comissão Nacional da Verdade (The National Truth Commission), created in 2011 by the federal government to investigate crimes committed during the dictatorship, published a series of recommendations to ensure that the crimes committed during this period would not be repeated.
The National Truth Commission’s Report concluded that:
One of the main recommendations of the report is to prohibit holding official events to commemorate the coup, as president Jair Bolsonaro did last week.
Conectas participated effectively in putting together the CNV report and in publicising it, suggesting recommendations such as the proposal to create mechanisms to combat torture, prohibition of strip searches in detention centres and the reform of the police forces.
During a hearing at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, in conjunction with other institutions, Conectas formally requested monitoring by the OAS (Organisation of American States) of the implementation of all these recommendations, and called for the government to create a permanent body, in charge of supervising progress.