Reflecting upon Transitional Justice – A guide to Brazilian documentaries

This text intends to be a guide that seeks to highlight a relevant part of Brazilian documentaries that help us think about transitional justice in Brazil. It is important to emphasize that this is a selection based on films that have circulated not only in film festivals and exhibitions, but also distributed in the circuit of screening rooms, digital platforms, and television channels. The list below has more than 30 titles and is divided by sets that address agrarian, indigenous, quilombola, and civil-military dictatorship issues, with emphasis on productions made after the implementation of the Truth Commission Law, in 2011, and the opening of the dictatorship archives.[1]

(more…)

Reparation of the Krenak indigenous people for the violations suffered during the Brazilian dictatorship

During the Brazilian civil-military dictatorship (1964-1985), many indigenous peoples were targeted by the State’s economic development policy and the repression that, through land invasions, forced labor, compulsory displacement and other violations caused death and suffering to numerous communities. According to the Final Report of the National Truth Commission (CNV), at least 8,350 indigenous individuals were killed as a result of the direct action or omission of state agents. However, the Report itself recognizes that the actual number of indigenous deaths in the period must be exponentially higher, as data are scarce.

(more…)

Electoral reforms: between the democratic rule of law and its erosion

On August 10, the House of Representatives approved, by 339 votes to 123, part of the basic text of the Proposal for Amendment to the Constitution (PEC) 125/11, which provides for profound changes in the Brazilian electoral system. A week later, the proposal returned to the plenary and was approved in a second round, being sent for deliberation in the Senate.

(more…)

The Brazil of Backsliding: deliberation on printed ballots and military parade

On August 10, Brazil experienced another episode of what historian Lilia Schwarcz has characterized as a “theater of power”. On the same day that the vote on PEC 135/19, known as the PEC of the printed vote, was scheduled to take place, the Ministry of Defense held a parade of armored cars in front of the National Congress. The purpose of the event was to deliver the invitation for Bolsonaro and Minister Walter Braga Netto to accompany a traditional Navy exercise, known as Operation Formosa, which took place on Monday, August 16, 2021. The Operation takes place annually since 1988 in the city of Formosa/GO.

(more…)

Borba Gato and the disputes over the country’s identities and memories

It was Saturday, July 24, 2021, when a group of young people dressed in black arrived in a truck and started to throw tires, spill flammable liquid on a statue that stands in the neighborhood of Santo Amaro, in the southern part of São Paulo, and set it on fire. Immediately, the media reported that the statue of Borba Gato had been set on fire. Authorship of the act was claimed by the group Revolução Periférica, which posted images of the action on social networks. In these same social networks an intense debate emerged about the legitimacy of the action. Some were against and others in favor. This is not an isolated fact in Brazil, much less in the world, especially regarding the connection of these monuments with modern slavery.

(more…)

Brazil is losing the ‘war against Covid’ under the command of Captain Jair Bolsonaro – What is the role of the army in this ‘conflict’? And what lies ahead to Brazilians?

The Covid pandemic has often been described by the government in Brazil as a war both literally and metaphorically. While President Bolsonaro himself, a former captain of the army, often argues that it is a biological war launched by China, high-ranking members of the executive and legislative usually use it as a metaphor.

(more…)

The sentencing of Carlinhos Metralha, a former agent of the Brazilian Military Dictatorship: a historical precedent to guarantee Transitional Justice

Carlos Alberto Augusto, better known as Carlinhos Metralha, was the first defendant to be convicted at the criminal level for acting in the persecution of political opponents during the Brazilian military dictatorship (1964-1985). In the sentence handed down by the 9th Federal Criminal Court of São Paulo, on June 18, 2021, the former police officer was sentenced to 2 years and 11 months in prison for conducting the kidnapping of former Marine Edgar de Aquino Duarte in 1971.

(more…)

Dissident sexualities in the Brazilian military dictatorship: brief history of repression and resistance of the LGBT movement

The exaltation of the Brazilian dictatorial period by the Bolsonaro government demonstrates the extreme need to continue the discussions and debates about human and fundamental rights that are continuously and increasingly attacked by the political practices of the president and his allies.

(more…)

The offensive strategy against governors and the legal strategy of the Federal Attorney General’s Office (AGU): democratic erosion and subversion of legal argumentation

On May 27, 2021, the Office of the General Counsel for the Union (AGU) was activated by the President of the Republic, Jair Bolsonaro, to act against the restrictive measures imposed by the governments of the states of Pernambuco, Rio Grande do Norte, and Paraná, which have been trying to control the Covid-19 pandemic.

(more…)