Brasil

Salutation: Exmo. Sr. Secretário

 Publicize this case in your national and local news media

For more information on the issues involved in this case, see the AI report Brazil: "They come in shooting" - policing socially excluded communities. (AMR 19/025/2005, December 2005).

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL

Public AMR 19/030/2005 December 2005

Four shot dead by military police in Caju, in the north of Rio de Janeiro

This event took place on 6 January 2004.

On the night of 6 January, 2004, W. D. G. de M. (13), J. C. P. de J. (16), Flávio Moraes de Andrade (19), E. M. de A. (17) and José Manoel da Silva (26) were sitting in a bar playing dominos when two policemen burst in. The boys tried to identify themselves but were reportedly brought down by a hail of bullets. The sister of W. D. G. de M, Elizabete Maria de Souza, described the aftermath: “in front of the Ribeiro market” there was “a lot of blood on the ground and pieces of brain and hair” and “walls smeared with blood” (“… em frente ao mercado Ribeiro… muito sangue espalhado no chão e pedaços de cérebro e cabelo no local… paredes sujas de sangue…”).

The following morning, three of the five bodies were found in the neighbourhood - dumped in a mud patch behind a bus company office. They were left there for hours before being collected by the forensics team – the Medical Legal Institute ( Instituto Médico Legal). While the families waited by the bodies, the police watched on, one taunting them: “One less pig for us to arrest” (“Menos um porco para a gente prender”).

An inquiry was launched into the incident; however the police responsible for the killings continue working in the community and the victims’ families have been given no protection by the state. The investigation is currently stalled because crucial forensic evidence has gone missing.

On 2 June 2005, Luis Manoel da Silva, brother of José Manoel da Silva, was reportedly executed by members of a military police unit who entered the community with their faces camouflaged. On calling at the civil police station to report the incident, Elizabete was informed that Luis Manoel had been killed in a shoot-out and that his death had been registered as an “auto de resistencia” (record of resisting arrest). However, witnesses to the incident contradicted this version of events.

In the wake of the killings, the community formed a group – the Mães do Caju (Mothers of Caju) – campaigning for justice for the victims of the killings and against police violence and intimidation. The Mães do Caju have now linked up with other communities in the Rede de Comunidades e Movimentos Contra a Violência (Network of Communities and Movements against Violence). Like many human rights defenders in Brazil, the campaigners have since faced threats and intimidation from the police. In April 2005, Elizabete Maria de Souza told Amnesty International that she feared for her safety and that of her three daughters.

TAKE ACTION

Write to the Brazilian authorities:

Express your concern regarding the Caju killings and the failure to fully investigate these incidents of suspected extra-judicial executions.

• say that inadequate investigation of police killings is contributing to high levels of impunity.

• state that the government has a responsibility to ensure the security of all its citizens and that policing based on human rights violations and social discrimination have failed to bring protection to a large part of the population;

• call on the government to take specific steps towards reforming public security policy, focusing special attention towards the high level of killings by police in Rio de Janeiro, and the apparent lack of investigations into them.

• urge the government to end of the use of the designations resistência seguida de morte (resistance followed by death) and autos de resistência (records of resistance) for victims of police interventions, to be replaced by a register of cases of police killings, which should be fully and independently investigated.

Brasil

Salutation: Exmo. Sr. Secretário

 Publicize this case in your national and local news media

For more information on the issues involved in this case, see the AI report Brazil: "They come in shooting" - policing socially excluded communities. (AMR 19/025/2005, December 2005).

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL

Public AMR 19/030/2005 December 2005

Operation Saturation, Jardim Elba

These events took place in August-September 2005.

At five o’clock in the morning of 28 August 2005, members of São Paulo’s military police invaded Jardim Elba, a favela in Sapopemba in the east of São Paulo. According to reports, the police entered by helicopter, in cars and on horse-back. Members of social movements from Sapopemba described the scene in a public statement:

“There were many police and many cars. It was as if there was a war. Police invading our “favela” from top to bottom and from bottom to top. The officers who walked up were like army patrols, while others descended by ropes from helicopters, occupying the whole favela. The streets were cordoned off, as the military [police] on horseback blocked all pedestrian access.”

During the operation, codenamed Saturation [Saturação], there were numerous human rights violations committed by the police, including: entering houses without warrants; abusive and violent searches of women – often by male police; threatening behaviour, such as holding guns to the heads of residents; damage to property and petty theft.

In more specific cases, a five year old girl had her leg broken after being reportedly trodden on by a military police officer. In another serious incident, a young woman was allegedly tortured by police in her own home. According to the Sapopemba Centre for Human Rights [Centro de Direitos Humanos do Sapopemba], police found some drugs in a raid of the young woman’s house. Instead of arresting her, they tortured her there and then, applying electric shocks to her breasts. They also prevented a neighbour from alerting the young woman’s mother as to what was going on.

Operation Saturation fits into a pattern of discriminatory policing in São Paulo’s poor neighbourhoods. What happened in Jardim Elba is symptomatic of a two-tiered public security system in which poorer communities are criminalised, treated as the enemy, and subject to illegal police practices that would never be tolerated in wealthier districts.

As a group of teenagers from the Jardim Elba community wrote in a letter to the authorities: “The police call members of our community low-lives, idiots, bums and criminals. We are human beings and we deserve respect… Above all we want to be able to access our rights.”

[“Os policiais chamam os moradores de vagabundos, idiotas, safados e marginais. Somos seres humanos e merecemos respeito... Desejamos, acima de tudo, acesso aos direitos.”]

TAKE ACTION

Write to the Brazilian authorities:

Express your concern about the use of large scale police invasions, like “Operação Saturação”, recently carried out on the favela of Jardim Elba, São Paulo, which fail to bring security to the community or improve relations with the police.

• state that the government has a responsibility to ensure the security of all its citizens and that policing based on human rights violations and social discrimination have failed to bring protection to a large part of the population;

• call on the government to take specific steps towards reforming public security policy, focusing special attention on illegal practices used in socially excluded communities;

• urge the government to end of the use of “mandatos de busca e aprenção coletivos” ( “generalised search and arrest warrants”) served on favela communities for police operations in socially excluded communities.

Brasil

Fax: (11) 3242-9582

Salutation: Exmo. Sr. Secretário

 Publicize this case in your national and local news media

For more information on the issues involved in this case, see the AI report Brazil: "They come in shooting" - policing socially excluded communities. (AMR 19/025/2005, December 2005).