Brazil: Neo-Fascist Groups Target Homosexuals and Human Rights Defenders
10/03/2000
Brazil has recently seen several egregious incidents of violence, and threats of violence, against gay men, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgender people. Most recently, in early September, letter-bombs and death threats were sent to the organizers of the GLBT Pride Parade in Sao Paulo, as well as to other human rights defenders there. Almost at the same time, in Curitiba in the state of Parana, posters calling for homosexuals to be killed appeared in three neighborhoods, bearing the name of a shadowy and mysterious group.
A growing right-wing skinhead movement in Brazil has recently engaged in physical attacks on Jews and people of African descent. GLBT people have also been targets. Nazi-inspired brutality was responsible for the death of Edson Neris da Silva, a gay man killed in Sao Paolo earlier this year (see IGLHRC's Action Alert of February 11, 2000, and an August 2, 2000 update --> see http://www.iglhrc.org/world/southamerica/Brazil2000Feb.html and http://www.iglhrc.org/world/southamerica/Brazil2000Aug.html).
In this light, IGLHRC and CORSA (Citizenship, Pride, Respect, Solidarity, and Love), a gay-rights organization based in Sao Paulo, ask for letters to authorities demanding that they protect human-rights defenders, and investigate these incidents of letter-bombs and threats.
IGLHRC also joins the Insituto Paranaense 28 de junio, an GLBT human-rights organization based in Curitiba, in asking for letters to authorities demanding an investigation of the posters there.
ACTION
IGLHRC asks for TWO letters of protest, one concerning the Sao Paulo incident and one concerning Curitiba.
SAO PAULO ACTION
PLEASE WRITE TO THE FOLLOWING AUTHORITIES CONCERNING THE SAO PAULO INCIDENT:
- S.E. Dr. Fernando Henrique Cardoso,
President of the Brazilian Republic - Praça dos Três Poderes,
Palácio do Planalto, 3. Andar,
70.150-900 - Brasília - DF.
Brazil.
Fax: ( +55 ) 61 223 06 64;
Fax: (+55 ) 61 322 23 14.
E-mail: pr@planalto.gov.br - Exmo. Sr. Presidente do Supremo Tribunal Federal (President of the Federal Supreme Court)
- Praça dos Tres Poderes,
Ed. Anexo 3 andar,
Gabinete da Presidencia,
Brasilia - DF-70175-900,
Brazil.
Fax : (+ 55 61) 316 55 08 - Exmo. Sr. Procurador Geral da República (Attorney General)
- Sgas L2 Sul. Q.603 Lote 23, 3 andar,
Brasilia - DF - 70200-901,
Brazil.
Fax : (+ 55 61) 223 61 19 - Exmo. Sr. Presidente da Camara dos Deputados (President of the Deputy Chamber)
- Camara dos Deputados,
Palacio do Congresso Nacional,
CEP 000 Brasilia - D.F.-
Brazil
Fax : (+5561) 318 2117 - Sr. Governador do Sao Paulo (Sao Paulo Governor),
- Palacio dos Bandeirantes,
Avenida Morumbi, 4500,
05.698-900 Sao Paulo, Sao Paulo,
Brazil.
Fax: ( +55 ) 11 845 33 01. - Excelentísimo Sr. Marco Vinicio Petrelluzzi
- Secretario de la Seguridad Pública del Estado de Sao Paulo.
(Secretary of Public Security)
Fax: ( +55 11) 38 23 57 08 - S.E. José Carlos Dias,
Ministro da Justiça,
(Minister of Justice) - Ministério da Justiça,
Esplanada dos Ministérios,
bloco T, 4. Andar,
70.064-900 - Brasília - DF.
Brazil.
Fax: ( +55 61) 224 24 48 / 322 68 17
E-mail: acs@mj.gov.br
Brazilian Embassy in your country
And please send a copy to:
- CORSA - Citizenship, Pride, Respect, Solidarity & Love
- Rua Pedro Americo, 32 - 13o andar
01045-010 Sao Paulo SP
Brazil
e-mail: corsasp@zipmail.com.br
SAMPLE LETTER, SAO PAULO
Dear . . . :
We write to express our concern over the letter-bombs received by Eduardo Bernardes da Silva, a leader of Amnesty International Sao Paulo, and Roberto de Jesus, chair of Sao Paulo's GLBT Pride Parade Association; and death threats received by two members of the Sao Paulo Parliamentary Human Rights Commission (Mr. Renato Simoes and Mr. Italo Cardoso) on September 4 and 5, 2000.
The bombs could easily have killed their victims. That they did not explode was due to a deplorable history of previous threats to human right activists: the intended victims did not open the packets but called the police instead. Included in the death threats were Nazi symbols, and promises to "exterminate" black, Jewish, and gay people, as well as migrants from northeastern states of Brazil.
We urge you to guarantee adequate and effective protection to Mr. Bernardes da Silva, Mr. de Jesus and all other human rights organizations and activists in Sao Paulo, as well as in the rest of Brazil. We also urge you to ensure a full investigation of these incidents: the perpetrators should be identified, given a fair trial, and if found guilty, punished as the law mandates.
The United Nations holds that human rights work deserves the full protection of the State, strengthening as it does the essential bonds of solidarity that keep societies together. The UN has reaffirmed this in its Declaration on the Rights of Human Rights Defenders (December 1998). Article 1 of the Declaration affirms that "Everyone has the right, individually and in association with others, to promote and to strive for the protection and realization of human rights and fundamental freedoms at the national and international levels." The Declaration specifically addresses the State's obligations in its Article 12.2, saying that "the State shall take all necessary measures to ensure the protection by the competent authorities of everyone, individually and in association with others, against any violence, threats, retaliation, de facto or de jure adverse discrimination, pressure or any other arbitrary action as a consequence of their legitimate exercise of the rights referred to in this Declaration."
We urge you to act immediately to protect the rights of Brazilian human rights defenders, and thus to further the achievement of a truly democratic society, where discrimination and violence will no longer exclude any Brazilians from the full enjoyment of their human rights.
CURITIBA ACTION
PLEASE WRITE TO THE FOLLOWING AUTHORITIES CONCERNING THE CURITIBA INCIDENT:
- S.E. Dr. Fernando Henrique Cardoso,
President of the Brazilian Republic - Praça dos Três Poderes,
Palácio do Planalto, 3. Andar,
70.150-900 - Brasília - DF.
Brazil.
Fax: ( +55 ) 61 223 06 64;
Fax: (+55 ) 61 322 23 14.
pr@planalto.gov.br - Secretário de Estado dos Direitos Humanos,
(Human Rights Secretary, Federal level) - ESPLANADA DOS MINISTÉRIOS
Ministério da Justiça
/BRASILIA/DF - BRASIL FAX 61 429 3772
sedh@mj.gov.br - Exmo Sr. Raldo Bonifácio,
Rede de Direitos Humanos,
Coordenação Nacional de DST e Aids
ESPLANADA DOS MINISTÉRIOS/ (National Coordinator of STDs and AIDS Networks, Health Ministry) - Ministério da Saúde - BRASILIA/DF - BRASIL FAX 61 323 8620
raldo@aids.gov.br - Deputado Marcos Rolim
Secretario Nacional dos Direitos Humanos ( Human Rights Commission at the Parliament) - Câmara de Deputados
PÁLACIO DO PLANALTO/ BRASILIA/DF - BRASIL marcos@rolim.com.br - Exmo Sr. Jaime Lerner,
Governador do Estado do Paraná (Parana Governor) PALÁCIO IGUAÇU
PRAÇA N. SRA. DE SALETTE/ CURITIBA/PR- BRASIL
FAX 41 254 2399
telecod@pr.gov.br- Exmo Sr. Dr. José Tavares,
Secretário de Segurança Pública (Public Security Secretary) - Exmo Sr. Dr. José Tavares,
- Av. Candido Hartmann, s/n - CURITIBA/PR-BRASIL
FAX 41 254 8838
sesp@pr.gov.br - Exmo Sr. Pretextato P Taborda Ribas Netto,
Secretário da Justiça e da Cidadania (Justice and Citizenship Secretary) - PALACIO IGUAÇU
Praça N. Sra. de Salette/ CURITIBA/PR/ BRASIL
FAX 41 252 5010
seju@pr.gov.br - Exmo Sr. João Elias de Oliveira,
Ouvidor Geral do Estado do Paraná (Parana's Attorney General) - Av. Marechal Hermes, 751/4o andar
80530-230 - CURITIBA/PR/ BRASIL
FAX 41 253 7451
ouvidori@pr.gov.br - Exmo Sr. Dr. Marcos Fowler,
Promotor dos Direitos Constitucionais do Ministério Público do Paraná
(Constitutional Rights Promotion Office for the Attorney General of Parana) - FAX 41 219 5168
mbfowler@pr.gov.br
Copies to
- INSTITUTO PARANAENSE 28 DE JUNHO
Conscientização e Direitos Humanos - Rua 13 de Maio, 1206/03A
CEP - 80510-030 - CURITIBA/PR- BRASIL
Fax: 55 041 324.9501
inpar28dejunho@ig.com.br
SAMPLE LETTER, CURITIBA
Dear . . . :
We write to express our concern over posters that were plastered in three Curitiba neighborhoods on August 15. They show a masked man with a gun in his hand, ready to fire. "Give yourself a happy day. Get rid of homosexuality," is the message written above the picture. The posters are signed by "Resistencia 88."
The message of the posters is an evident incitement to violence. And violence against homosexuals is in fact widespread in Brazil. In February, Edson Neris da Silva, a gay man, was killed, apparently by hate-motivated skinhead gangs, in Sao Paolo. Last month letter-bombs as well as death threats were sent-in letters decked with Nazi symbols-to the president of Sao Paolo's gay and lesbian pride committee. Other letter-bombs targeted other human rights defenders, including a leader of Amnesty International. Yet these are only the most recent, prominent, and publicized incidents in what is in fact a longstanding and deep-rooted pattern of violence against lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, and transvestites.
Brazilian activists have documented almost two thousand murders of homosexuals since 1963, of which only a small percentage have resulted in the conviction of those responsible. In Parana state, 4 gay men and 4 tranvestites were murdered in 1999 alone; only one case has led to a conviction.
This situation is intolerable for all Brazilians-not least because the same groups which menace homosexuals are also responsible for attacks on blacks, Jews, migrants, and other vulnerable groups. We urge you to investigate and identify the group "Resistencia 88" which claims responsibility for these posters. We urge you to follow the example of Sao Paulo authorities, who, in the wake of the murder of Edson Neris da Silva, appointed a special commission to address "intolerance crimes" based on race, sexual orientation, religion, or sport preference. We urge you to take all steps necessary to ensure that crimes based on such identities, or targeting any vulnerable group, will be fully investigated and punished. And we urge you to ensure that all Brazilian citizens receive, and can rely on, the full protection of the law.
BACKGROUND
According to the Instituto Paranaense 28 de junio, a GLBT group in the Brazilian state of Parana, on August 15 posters appeared on walls in three Curitiba neighborhoods. The posters show a masked man carrying a gun, ready to fire. "Give yourself a happy day. Get rid of homosexuality," the posters say, above a group's signature: "Resistencia 88." This is the first public action undertaken by a group of that name.
Calls for murderous action against homosexuals (or other groups, including blacks, Jews, or internal migrants from the poverty-stricken northeastern provinces) are not to be taken lightly in a country where hate-motivated crimes are widespread. Toni Reis, from Dignidade-another Curitiba GLBT group-has informed the press that 71 gays have been killed in the city in the last 30 years, with only 5 of those cases solved by the local police. In his book "Violacao dos Direitos Humanos e Assasinato de homossexuais no Brasil- 1999" (Human Rights Violations and Murder of Homosexuals in Brazil - 1999; Grupo Gay da Bahía, 1999), activist Luiz Mott documented 8 murders in the state of Parana (whose capital is Curitiba) in 1999 alone. 4 gay men and 4 transvestites were killed, and no suspect has even been identified in the following cases:
--Mauro de Souza, 25, gay man, English teacher, found dead in his apartment (3 shots),Fazenda Rio Grande, January 19, 1999. --Rebeca (Gilberto Jesus Silva), 19, transvestite, sex worker, and Leda (Jose Juarez Carneiro), age unknown, transvestite, sex worker, both shot in the street, Curitiba, March 7, 1999. --N.N., transvestite, found lying in a field, shot, Campo Comprido, April 8, 1999. --Evelin (Luiz Valquira), 23, transvestite, found dead in the bushes, 1 shot, Folha de Londrina, September 21, 1999. --N.N., 45, found dead in a trash dump, feet and hands bound, December 4, 1999.
In the case of Jose Couto da Silva, 35, gay man, bank clerk, found dead on April 24, 1999 in his Curitiba apartment with his throat slit and half his body inside the refrigerator, police are investigating a suspect -- a friend of the victim. The only case documented by Mott that has been fully solved by the authorities is that of Hilde (Hildebrando dos Santos), 53, a priest in a local religion, who was found dead in his house, stabbed several times across his body. The murderer was a minor identified as V.A.M.L., who has been convicted and imprisoned.
This extraordinary rate of impunity suggests indifference on the authorities' part to violence directed against a stigmatized social group. Such violence, and such indifference, are not limited to Curitiba. Luiz Mott gives a figure of 1,830 for the number of homosexuals (the term includes gay men, lesbians, transvestites, bisexuals and transsexuals) known to have been murdered throughout Brazil from 1963-1999. Those are only documented cases; many more remain shrouded in silence. Moreover, in spite of Brazil's recent enactment of protections against discrimination, such murders are increasing. Mott's figures show that, in the 1980s, murders of homosexuals rose by some 50% compared to the 1970s. In the 1990s, they increased by 150%. Brazil's national Constitution specifically mandates that "Terrorism and those [acts] defined as hate crimes will be considered as crimes by the law. Those who order, execute, or, having the means to prevent them, fail to do so, wil be held responsible for those crimes" (Article 5.43). Yet the practice of terror still prevails over the rhetoric of tolerance throughout the country.
At the same time, the response of the city and state of Sao Paulo to the widely publicized murder of gay man Edson Neris da Silva, in February 2000, indicates at least a will to achieve redress and to prevent violence in future. Da Silva was beaten to death by a gang of some 30 skinheads. His death drew public attention to the targeting of homosexuals by extremist groups; and Sao Paulo's appointment of a commission and police unit to address "intolerance crimes" showed an understanding of the linkage between various forms of hatred, including those based on race, religion, and sexual orientation.
Yet neo-Fascist and paramilitary groups continue to thrive in Sao Paulo, and to expand their roster of victims. Eduardo Bernandes da Silva, a member of Amnesty International (AI) in Sao Paulo, Brazil, has been the target of repeated death threats, through ordinary mail and e-mail, warning that he and his organization would suffer for their advocacy on behalf of blacks, gays, and Jews. These threats were signed by a neo-Fascist group called FAC or Frente Anti-Caus (Anti-Chaos Front). In October 1999, a bomb was planted in Sao Paulo's AI office; it came with a letter featuring a swastika, also signed by FAC. AI closed its office and moved Mr. Bernardes da Silva to another state. (See the Amnesty International action alert forwarded by IGLHRC on June 15, 2000, see http://www.iglhrc.org/world/southamerica/brazil2000jun.html). On June 5, 2000, Amnesty's Porto Alegre office received a letter from FAC claiming that they knew Mr. Bernardes da Silva's whereabouts, and threatening to kill him.
Other threatening letters were sent to the human rights organization Grupo Tortura Nunca Mais (No More Torture Group), and to a major national newspaper, the Folha de São Paulo. Some letters warned of attacks on a planned gay march in São Paulo.
Mr. Bernardes da Silva returned to Sao Paulo. On September 4, 2000, he found a strange package in his mail. Instead of opening it, he called the police. The package contained a swastika and a bomb--the latter "enough to kill a person," according to Andre Luis Alves, a member of the bomb squad. Mr. Bernardes da Silva now plans to leave Sao Paulo and perhaps the country, local media report.
Next day (September 5), a similar package was delivered to the Sao Paulo GLBT Pride Parade Association. The parcel, addressed to Roberto de Jesus -- the association's chairman and chief organizer of the city's Gay Pride Parade in June -- contained in its exterior wrapping a hand-written note declaring "death to gays" and signed by "skinheads." The association's vice-chairman, alerted by the previous day's news reports, did not open the parcel and called the police, who found a similar bomb.
On the same day, two members of the Sao Paulo Parliamentary Human Rights Commission, Mr. Renato Simoes and Mr. Italo Cardoso, received faxes in which FAC threatened to "exterminate" gays, Jews, blacks and local migrants from the Brazil's impoverished northeast, along with their defenders. The letters said: "Do not forget that there are very powerful people behind us. What will the GRADI [the special police unit against intolerance crimes created after Neris da Silva's murder] do to us? Take us to jail? Oh, how frightening! Idiots."
The bombs received by Mr. da Silva and Mr. de Jesus, as well as the death threats, carried the return address of the Israelite Foundation of Sao Paulo state, which represents the local Jewish community and coordinates activities at Jewish schools, hospitals, synagogues and other organizations. Amnesty Brazil spokesman Galeno de Almeida said the return address was a hoax and offensive joke, since the neo-Nazis' hate campaign also targets Jews. The neo-Fascists stated they planned to start a campaign on September 7 -- Brazil's Independence Day -- against homosexuals, blacks, and migrants.
On September 13, local GLBT and human rights organizations held a public gathering in the Sao Paulo City Council, which 75 organizations attended. As Roberto de Jesus, chairman of Sao Paulo GLBT Pride, put it: "This bomb is not for me only; it is targeted at all people who fight for human rights, for democracy, for a better world."
